


Lars & Organa (Book 4: Love)

by HiNerdsItsCat (HiLarpItsCat)



Series: Lars & Organa [4]
Category: Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Luke and Leia Switched, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-04-21 14:53:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 29,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14287329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiLarpItsCat/pseuds/HiNerdsItsCat
Summary: “I’ve got to save you.”“You already have.”Having faced the truth about their origins, Leia Skywalker and Luke Organa's confrontation with Darth Vader seems inevitable. Can they resist the call of the Dark Side, or are they doomed to repeat the mistakes of the previous generation?A retelling of the events of "Star Wars: Return of the Jedi" if Luke and Leia had been switched at birth. (Book 4 of 4)





	1. Sandstone

“Nothing we can do but wait for dawn,” Winter said. 

“They’ve been gone for how long now?” Han asked, agitated. 

“Only four hours. It’s still an hour till the palace goes dark, and then another hour or two before they can act.”

“And you’re sure that they’re not just going to shoot Lando on the spot?”

“Trust me,” said Winter. “From the information I’ve gathered, Jabba likes his trophies. That’s how we were able to confirm that she’s still frozen.”

Han shivered. “It’s been months.”

“It had to take this long, Han. We didn’t know the planet, we didn’t know anything about Jabba’s operations, we had no plan. And now we do. Plus, we have at least two backup plans in case things go wrong.”

“Did Lando ever explain  _ why _ there’s a twenty-five thousand credit bounty on his head?”

Winter frowned. “Come to think of it, I don’t think he ever did.”

“What the hell did he  _ do _ to Jabba?”

“If it’s Lando we’re talking about, probably something extremely infuriating,” Winter said, with a smile. Han couldn’t help but notice the slight blush on her face. 

Han decided to broach the topic head-on. “You haven’t heard from Luke, have you?”

“Not since we relayed that the mission was a go.” Her smile vanished.

“You don’t think he’s coming  _ here _ , do you?”

Winter shook her head. “I don’t know, actually. There’s always a chance.”

“I thought you knew him better than anyone.”

“I used to.”

“I don’t know how you’re even still comfortable being around him,” Han grumbled. 

“It’s not about comfort,” Winter said. “It’s about getting the work done. And the Rebellion needs him.”

“How badly do they need him that they’re going to let a possible burgeoning Sith Lord have access to everything they’re doing?”

“I don’t think he’s quite that far gone, Han. He’s horrified by what he’s done and didn’t make excuses.”

“That doesn’t mean we have to trust him,” Han pointed out.

“No,” agreed Winter. “It doesn’t.”

“You didn’t tell him the plan, did you?”

“I didn’t tell him the plan.”

“Good.”

* * *

Calm down. Breathe.

You can do anything if you’re calm enough. 

He remembered Leia telling him that. 

Jabba’s palace had finally retired for the night—well, for the early hours of the morning, just before dawn. Hutts were known to sleep deeply, but even so, he had to be careful entering the main room. 

Seeing her on the wall almost made him sick.

It had been months. 

His infiltration went off without a hitch. Since the leader of Twin Suns was currently a carbonite-frozen slab on the wall, Jabba could freely employ Ubese again. Learning to speak Ubese was still a pain; fortunately, he knew that Jabba didn’t speak a word of it either. 

He had the medpack ready to go. It might not be much, but there were people waiting right outside to treat her injuries. All he had to do was get her out of the palace.

Just breathe.

The controls for unfreezing were easy enough to decipher. Turn up the temperature on it a little bit, and it would be enough to thaw her out. 

It was like watching someone paint colors onto a statue as the stone gave way to normal human flesh. 

He caught her as she crumpled to the ground. 

“Who’s there?” she said, teeth chattering. 

“Shhh,” he cautioned her. “We’re in Jabba’s palace. We have to go. Now.”

“I can’t see,” she whispered, a note of panic in her voice. 

“You have hibernation sickness. Your eyesight will return in time.” He helped her up. 

“Who are you?”

He switched off the vocoder in his helmet. “Someone who had a hell of a time fitting into your costume.”

Leia smiled with relief. “Biggs.”

* * *

She had been floating in space.

Her body was a distant beacon, tethering her to reality, but in the meantime she had swum among the stars. Time had no meaning. There was only her and the Force.

And the knot of anger that she still nursed in her chest. 

Then she was thrust back into herself and it was cold and painful and she couldn’t see anything. But here was Biggs, her oldest friend, here to rescue her. 

Assuming the two of them could get out of here alive. She still wasn’t walking very well. 

There must have been a security droid somewhere, because before they could make it out of the main room, the lights came on. Jabba awoke, sleepy but already upset. 

“Run!” she said, pushing Biggs forward. 

“Leia, there are a  _ lot _ of blasters. And you still can’t see.”

“I can make out some vague shapes. Leave the blasters to me.”

Using what Force energy she could muster, she reached out and pulled blasters out of the hands of as many people as she could. Granted, it was only about three or four out of over a dozen, but it evened the odds a little more. 

She gave Biggs another shove and they bolted from the main room while blaster fire erupted around them. 

Leia had lied; she still couldn’t see anything with her eyes. She could, however, use the Force to sense what was around her. 

Mostly angry people with blasters. 

What she wouldn’t give for a lightsaber right about now. 

“Give me your blaster,” she ordered Biggs. 

“I fortunately have more than one,” he said, “but let me remind you:  _ you still can’t see _ and also you have a  _ giant hole in your stomach _ .”

“Amazing,” she said, holding up the blaster she had snatched out of his leg holster the second he started to protest. “Everything word of what you just said was wrong.”

And she began to fire at the guards approaching them. 

“Gammoreans coming,” Biggs warned. “Also what are you talking about?”

Gammoreans. They took more than a standard blaster bolt to take out, which was what made them such effective guards for a stronghold like Jabba’s. 

“I  _ mean _ ,” she said, making a dive behind what she hoped was cover and not a droid, “that I had what was probably a good bit of time to heal myself with the Force.”

“You healed a lightsaber slash to the guts with the Force?” Biggs yelled from the opposite wall.

“Don’t worry, I probably still have a pretty grisly scar. I’ll show you later,” she yelled back.

“Gross,” Biggs shouted in mock disgust. 

“How about the Canyon Sidestep?”

“First of all, gross. Second of all, waiting for your cue.”

Leia laughed, reached out for the Force, and waited till the time was right. “Go!” she yelled. 

It was like being back with Twin Suns. Leia jumped over her cover (which did turn out to be a trash collector droid), and rolled on the sandy floor.

That was the thing about Tatooine. No matter what, the sand got everywhere. 

She picked up a handful of it and flung it into the first Gammorean’s eyes. He squealed and flailed around with his stun axe. Darting past him, Leia put her blaster to the back of his head and pulled the trigger.

Gammoreans could shake off a stun bolt fairly easily, but even they had trouble with ones at point-blank range. 

Biggs met her on the other side. “Not bad,” he said, “but you’ve gotten slower.”

“Give me a break, I was a statue ten minutes ago.” Her vision was finally starting to return, though more slowly than she would have liked. She could only keep up relying on the Force to guide her for so long before becoming exhausted. Especially since she needed it most to keep her upright. 

They reached the entrance to the stronghold: a large metal door, flanked on each side by a security station.

“You grab one, I’ll grab the other,” Biggs said. “They both have to be triggered simultaneously.”

Leia had just taken out the guard in her station when the door exploded inward. 

As the smoke cleared, Imperial stormtroopers began to pour into Jabba’s palace. 

* * *

“We’ll wait for your signal,” Wedge said over the comms.

“Hopefully I won’t need the backup, but I’ll have the beacon ready,” Luke replied. 

He took a speeder from Mos Eisley out into the desert. The heat was oppressive; he couldn’t imagine how Leia had managed to grow up here without going mad. 

He could see Jabba’s palace in the distance. It stood starkly against the early morning light.

Luke was about two-thirds of the way there when his speeder began to slow and then stop. With a frustrated groan, he climbed off and tried to figure out what was wrong with it. He noticed several frayed wires and sand-clogged mechanisms. The speeder was a piece of junk. 

“It’s an old con,” came a woman’s voice from the rocks above him. “Sell an off-worlder a broken speeder bike and then charge them through the nose for a rescue.”

“Was it that obvious?” Luke asked. 

“You’re wearing all black on a binary-star desert planet. Yeah, I’d say you stuck out a little.”

Luke craned his neck to find the speaker. “So what do I owe you?”

“Oh, you misunderstand,” said the young woman, nimbly climbing down the rocks. “I’m not working with those con jobs. I was told to keep a lookout for someone fitting your description.”

“You were? By who?” Luke asked suspiciously. If she was an Imperial…

“A lady named Winter. She told us you might be coming and to intercept you if you showed up.” She offered a hand. “I’m Camie.”

“Luke,” he said, shaking it. 

“Leave the bike; I’ve got a landspeeder parked nearby. Assuming the Jawas haven’t triggered the security features yet.”

Something about her reminded him of Leia. “Did you know a girl named Leia who used to live around here?”

“Of course I did,” Camie said. “She was one of my best friends growing up. Part of the original gang, so to speak.”

Luke smiled. 

“You’re with the Rebellion, right?” she asked him. “I understand she’s become a big shot over there.” She wrinkled her nose. “Not that you seem to be in much of a hurry to get her out.”

“There were complications,” Luke said. Infuriating ones, to be precise. He had lost track of the number of times he nearly ran to a ship and went flying straight to Tatooine, except that he had no idea what he would do once he got there. 

“Yeah, I bet,” Camie scoffed. “Your friends here have been taking their sweet time too. We were told not to interfere, that they would take care of it, but it’s been months now and we’re sick of waiting.”

“What do you mean? I thought they were launching the rescue now.”

“Now?” Camie said in surprise. She appeared to calculate something in her head for a moment, then froze. “Of course that’s where Biggs went.” She let out a frustrated groan. “For fuck’s sake, we’ve got at least half a dozen of our crew in there now.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Not if we’re running two different jobs at the same time with zero communication, it isn’t.” She pinched the top of her nose. “Okay, let’s get you to your friends as quickly as possible. We need to figure out what to do next.”

* * *

Leia crouched down below the desk in the security station. The stormtroopers seemed to have other priorities on their minds, because they moved down the great hallway without checking to see if they were occupied.

Once they had passed far enough, she climbed out of the station and went to Biggs in the opposite station. 

“Let’s go, then,” she said, gesturing to the rather convenient hole in the door. 

Biggs hesitated. 

“What?” she asked. 

“Lando’s still in there.”

“What’s he doing here?”

“He was my ticket into the palace. Turns out there was a twenty-five thousand credit bounty on him, so I brought him dressed as a bounty hunter.”

“Is he all right?”

“For now; he’s just imprisoned. But if the Imperials find him, he’s in big trouble.”

“What the hell did he do to Jabba to get a bounty on his head?”

“No idea. I thought you might know.”

“I met him only about an hour before I got stabbed.”

“So what do we do now?” Biggs asked. 

Leia sighed. “I guess we’re breaking back in?”

* * *

“I thought I said that we were handling it,” Winter said, annoyed.

“And I thought  _ I _ said that if you Inner Rim assholes didn’t do anything, we  _ would _ ,” Camie said, furiously. “And what’s this about using Biggs on this op? Why didn’t anyone tell us?”

“I told him not to,” Winter said. Seeing Camie’s expression sour, she added, “which was, in retrospect, a bad call. We wanted to keep this as locked down as we could. We know that Jabba’s people are everywhere.”

“Well, not in Twin Suns!” Camie exclaimed. “This is what I’ve been saying: you know nothing about what’s going on here.”

“Let’s calm down,” Luke said, starting to get agitated himself. “So we have Biggs in there disguised as bounty hunters, Lando there as… a bounty? What did he do to get a bounty on his head, anyway?”

Winter shrugged. 

Luke continued. “And half a dozen people from Twin Suns disguised as various guards and visitors. That’s not a disaster.”

“Han and Chewie just went in, too,” Winter added. “They were tired of waiting and thought that something might have gone wrong. 

Camie’s comm clicked. She took a few steps away from the group and answered it. When she returned to Winter and Luke, her face had gone pale. “We  _ do _ , in fact, have a disaster on our hands.”

“What?” asked Luke.

“Imperial stormtroopers just raided the compound.”


	2. Rancor

Leia was getting tired and she knew that Biggs could tell. 

“We could go regroup, wait for backup,” Biggs offered. 

Leia shook her head. “You said it yourself: if the Imperials capture Lando, we’re in big trouble.” She thought for a moment. “That said, odds are that the stormtroopers are currently focusing more on Jabba’s people than on the people Jabba has imprisoned, so that might buy us a little time.” She gave Biggs a smile. “Of course, that doesn’t mean that we  _ couldn’t _ call Camie.”

Biggs clicked on his comm. Camie answered with a snarl. “Sun Two, you piece of poodoo, what were you thinking keeping me out of the loop on this?”

Leia shot him a look of surprise mixed with disapproval. Biggs shrugged helplessly at her but said to Camie urgently, “Listen, there’s no time to go into that. We’ve got a problem: Imps just raided the palace. We’ve got stormtroopers everywhere and we still have to get… the Bounty out.”

“Is Sun Leader there? Is she okay?”

“I’m fine, Sun Four,” Leia said, leaning in towards the comm’s microphone. 

“She’s still shaking off hibernation sickness and can barely see a thing,” Biggs said before Camie could respond. Leia gave him a glare. 

“Damn it. Okay, sit tight, we’re putting together something.”

Leia cut in. “We’re going to go make sure the Bounty is okay.”

“Sun Leader, that is an incredibly stupid idea.”

“How much longer do you want to yell at me until you realize I’m just going to do it anyway?”

“Oh, screw you. Fine. Try not to get killed before I get a chance to yell at you both. I’m a mom now; I’ve had practice.” She clicked off the comm. 

Blaster fire echoed up the great hallway from the direction of Jabba’s throne room. 

“What I wouldn’t give for a lightsaber right about now,” Leia grumbled.

* * *

“I don’t like this,” Camie said as Winter and Luke donned their armor.

“It’s better than the alternative: going in  _ not _ disguised as stormtroopers,” Winter pointed out. 

“Still don’t like it,” she said. Twin Suns apparently had a stash of stormtrooper armor for infiltration purposes. Luke wasn’t thrilled about getting back into armor himself; it brought back too many memories of the Death Star. 

But Winter was right: it wasn’t like he could storm the palace as Luke Organa, Rebel prince. 

“So here’s the plan,” Camie said, making adjustments to the insides of their helmets. “You go in, grab Lando, escort him out. See if you can’t snag the others on your way.”

“Did Han say what he and Chewie were going to be doing in there?” Luke asked Winter.

“Yes, but…” she sighed. “He doesn’t want you to know. And anyway, if we get everyone out, they won’t need to put it into action, so it will be a moot point.”

“And if things go  _ really  _ sideways,” Camie added, “we apparently have a handful of X-wings ready to turn the sand to glass.”

Luke was quiet while Camie finished her adjustments. “There,” Camie said, “that should do it. I’ll be able to see everything you see, as well as communicate with you on a private frequency. Any questions?”

Luke turned to Winter. “Are you okay with me coming along?”

Winter bit her lower lip. “I don’t think it depends on whether or not I’m ‘okay’ with it. I need backup, and you’re it. Just… just keep it together under pressure, okay?”

Luke nodded. “I promise.” It stung, this distrust, but he had earned it and would have to live with it until he could prove himself trustworthy again. 

Camie looked confused, but didn’t remark on it. “Right. So off you go. Stay safe, don’t let Leia do something unbelievably stupid until I’ve had a chance to give her a good smack first.”

“Copy that,” Winter said, putting on her helmet. Luke did the same, and they started towards the palace. 

* * *

“Leia,” said Biggs, “This sounds like an unbelievably stupid idea.”

“You know where they’re keeping him, right?”

“Kind of? I know he’s on the lower floor.”

“And then what happens to them?”

“Well, assuming they’re not just summarily shot or fed to the rancor, Jabba’s latest favorite method of elaborate execution is the Pit of Carkoon.”

“That sarlacc thing? So he just chucks them in?” Leia asked. 

“With a great deal of pomp and ceremony,” Biggs answered sarcastically, “but basically, yes.”

“So… if he’s executing them outside the palace, then they must be kept…”

“...somewhere close to where he keeps his barges,” Biggs finished, understanding. 

“It would make it easy to transfer them onto the ships,” Leia said. 

“Stormtroopers will still probably be guarding the exit, in case Jabba tries to make a break for it.”

“Okay, but they won’t be expecting someone to break  _ in _ , so we’ll have the advantage.”

“Right up until the point that we’re inside a palace crawling with stormtroopers  _ and _ the worst kind of gangsters on the planet.”

“Fair point. But we’ll deal with that when we get to it.”

They crept around the outside of the palace, scaling the jutting sandstone rocks. Leia noticed that there weren’t any of Jabba’s guards outside… living ones, at least. The stormtroopers had been thorough. 

“Look,” Biggs said, beckoning Leia to where he was concealed behind a large rock overlooking the dock. “No guards.”

“And the barges all appear to be there,” Leia said, looking. “Guess Jabba hasn’t tried to make a run for it yet.”

“You think he’s going to?” Biggs asked. 

“These kind of palaces are fortresses, meant to keep enemies out. Once they’re inside, Jabba’s basically a legless womp rat.”

“So let’s get in and out before he tries,” Biggs said, readying his blaster.

There ended up being only four troopers standing between them and Lando. She wasn’t surprised to find the cell block relatively unattended; what danger could they possibly pose, locked up?

Leia gave a frustrated sigh as she went searching for the unlocking mechanism. “Seriously, what I wouldn’t give for a lightsaber right about now.” She looked at Lando as he exited the cell. “You didn’t happen to grab my saber on the way out of Bespin, did you?”

“Sorry,” Lando said. He looked a bit rough at the moment; Leia wasn’t sure how much of that was part of his cover and how much of it was from the few hours he had spent as a prisoner here. “Good to see you— how’s your stomach wound?”

“Not a problem. Here’s a blaster,” Leia said, tossing him one she had picked up off one of the downed stormtroopers. She looked at the other prisoners down in the remaining cells. “Anyone give you a hard time down here?”

“No,” Lando said. “It’s been pretty quiet here, though we’re all a little on edge.”

“Got it,” Leia said, unlocking the other cells. She turned back to Lando. “Say, what did you do to Jabba to get that bounty on your head?”

“Long story,” Lando said. “Let’s get out of here.” They could hear blaster fire getting closer. 

“Get to one of the barges,” Leia said. “Some of the Twin Suns crew are waiting a few clicks away from here, in the direction of Mos Eisley.”

“And what are you about to do?” Biggs asked.

“They aren’t the only ones we need to get out of here,” Leia said grimly. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

“I’m coming,” Biggs said.

“Fine. I’ll explain on the way,” Leia said, as they jogged down the hall towards the center of Jabba’s palace. 

* * *

“It’s a wonder they can see anything in here,” Winter murmured over their private frequency. “This is quite possibly the worst light for seeing in.”

“That might be intentional,” Luke said. “Keeps newcomers from trying anything risky.” 

“Hmm, that’s curious,” Winter said as they passed a pair of unconscious Gammoreans in the great hallway.

“What is?”

“Those two Gammoreans. They were shot from behind. You would have thought they would have turned around to face the door when it exploded.”

“Unless they were running away.”

“Unlikely, if they’re Jabba’s guards. And they’re still alive. I would have thought the stormtroopers would have shot to kill,” she said. 

“Do you have a bad feeling about this?” Luke asked. 

“Not a bad feeling, just a feeling that there’s another element that we don’t know about.”

“Camie did say that Biggs had gotten Leia unfrozen.”

“Then why weren’t they back at the meeting spot? It’s as if they got to the door and then changed their minds.”

“Hang on a second, let me see if I can sense her,” Luke said. 

He had kept himself closed off from the Force as much as possible after his confrontation with Vader. It just felt too dangerous to dabble with. He was done with hurting anyone else. 

But now, he opened himself to the Force slowly, carefully. It was like walking through a room of breakable things; any wrong move could shatter everything.

He reached out and found her. Leia. His sister.

She seemed to not notice his presence there; she was distracted by something important. Something that she had to finish before she left. 

“She’s still here,” Luke confirmed. He looked over to see Winter looking at him. Even with the helmet on, her posture conveyed a certain hesitancy. “What?” he asked her.

“You’re just different, that’s all. You’re actually using the Force more deliberately. It’s just… a little weird.”

“I had some Jedi training, even,” he said. 

“Really?”

“Okay, not  _ much _ training. But a little. I can move rocks with my mind and stuff.”

“Nice trick.”

“It’s great at parties,” he said, and heard her laugh through the comms. It was a nice sound to hear again. 

They had reached the end of the massive entrance hallway, entering a smaller series of corridors. At a spot where it split into two different hallways, Luke heard a familiar voice coming their way. 

“ _How_ many?”

Followed by a Wookiee roar. 

* * *

“And if we meet up with a stormtroopers?” Biggs asked.

“We’ll deal with them,” Leia said.

“And if we meet up with an  _ entire squad  _ of stormtroopers?”

“Then  _ I’ll _ deal with them,” Leia said. 

“I don’t remember you being quite this reckless,” Biggs pointed out. 

Leia scoffed. “You don’t remember yelling at me about this exact thing a few days before I left?”

“I guess,” Biggs said. “A lot of things changed after that. But yeah, now that you mention it… it seems like the Rebellion hasn’t changed you much.” He smiled. They both froze at the sound of a large number of footsteps heading their way. 

Leia pulled him by the sleeve. “Come on, up against the wall. No sounds.”

A group of Jabba’s henchmen passed by without seeing them.

After they were out of sight, Biggs looked at Leia, impressed. “New Jedi trick?”

“You know it,” Leia said with a grin. 

“Camie told us about what happened to Ben. I’m sorry.”

She shut her eyes for a moment, trying not the think about Ben. 

He had  _ lied _ to her.

“Thanks,” she said at last. “Now shh, we’re getting close to the throne room, I think.”

The room looked empty, but Leia knew better. She pulled aside a curtain to reveal what was hidden behind it. 

A group of slave girls huddled together. 

“Come on,” Leia said offering her hand to the closest one. “We’re getting you out of here.”

* * *

The stormtroopers were practically on Han and Chewbacca’s heels.

Winter drew her blaster, but Luke put out an arm to caution her. “Wait,” he said. “I think there’s something I can do to buy them a little time.”

“Is this going to be a spooky Force thing?”

“...yes.”

“Just leave me out of it, okay?”

“I promise.” He could sense the squad jogging towards them, each footstep in unison. Each mind, packed down until it was nearly identical to the ones around it. Easy to control as a group of blocks within arm’s reach. 

Just breathe. 

You can do this. 

He could have forced them to leave. Could have commanded them to shoot themselves with their own blasters. Could have brought them to their knees before him. 

But it was only for a second, this command.

And a second was all they needed.

_Stop,_ he commanded.

The stormtroopers suddenly hesitated as a group, their footsteps falling out of sync. 

Luke and Winter watched as an entire squad of stormtroopers tripped over one another and fell to the ground. 

It was easy to blast them with stun bolts at that point. 

Winter and Luke stepped over their unconscious forms and headed after Han and Chewie. 

“We might want to remove our helmets at this point,” Winter said, “otherwise they might shoot us accidentally.”

“I’m honestly a little worried about Han shooting me  _ intentionally _ ,” Luke said, half-serious. But he removed his helmet, ignoring Camie’s annoyed protests over the comm. 

They arrived in the throne room just in time to watch Han and Chewie fall into an open pit below them. 

* * *

Leia readied her blaster to take out the source of the approaching footsteps and only just barely managed to avoid hitting what turned out to be Han and Chewie running at top speed.

“Lost them,” Chewie panted, a little confused. Then both of them saw Leia. 

Han rushed to Leia and pulled her into an embrace before she even put her blaster down. 

As his lips finally drew away from her face, Leia gave a laugh. “I almost shot you, you know,” she said. 

“Worth it,” he said with a wink. Then his face grew serious. “Jabba has another way out of here. Some secret tunnel. The second he gets to his barge, he’s going to blast the building to rubble. We’ve got to get out of here now.”

Leia nodded. She gestured to Biggs and the girls. “We’re going out the back way and stealing a barge.”

Han looked concerned. “You sure? Jabba’s going to be out there too.”

“Well, do you have a better idea?”

“I wouldn’t necessarily say ‘better’. Say, would you move aside for just a second?” he leaned around her to the edge of Jabba’s dais. “Get ready, Chewie!” He pushed a button on the dais. 

With a grinding sound, a grate slid open in the center of the throne room floor. 

“Are you nuts?” Biggs asked. The girls started protesting as well, knowing full well what was underneath the throne room. Leia was starting to get an idea herself. 

“Han,” she cautioned. 

“See you in a bit, princess,” he said, and leaped down the hole after Chewie. 

* * *

“What just happened?” Luke asked, confused.

“No time,” Leia said, ushering a group of slave girls down another hallway. She handed a few of them blasters. “We’re heading out the back door before Jabba blows the place up.”

“He’s  _ what? _ ”

“Run!” she yelled, drawing her blaster and taking out one of Jabba’s guards, who was blocking the hall. 

“Didn’t you get stabbed in the stomach?” Luke asked. He found himself running next to an attractive young man about his own age. 

“Hey, I’m Biggs,” he said, introducing himself as they ran.

“Luke,” he said.

“You’re that prince, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You know, we almost kidnapped you once,” Biggs said.

“Wait, what?”

Leia, meanwhile, was already out in the harsh desert sunlight. Jabba was already on his largest barge. 

And his guards were waiting for her. All holding blasters trained on her head. 

There were too many of them. 

Suddenly, the wall to her left rumbled, and then collapsed as if smashed by the force of a giant fist. 

Which it, in fact, had been.

Leia looked over to see an impossible sight: a rancor, nearly a hundred meters tall, smashing through the outer wall of Jabba’s palace. 

And clinging to the back of its neck: a smuggler and a Wookiee. 

“Are you  _ insane? _ ” she yelled up at Han. 

The rancor roared, and made its way towards Jabba’s men. With a sweep of its claws, it knocked nearly a dozen of them aside. Han and Chewie appeared to be hanging on for dear life as the rancor lurched from side to side. 

Jabba’s barge had swung around and opened fire on the giant creature. It roared in pain as the heavy lasers hit it in the torso. 

Some of the other barges began to pull away from the palace. They didn’t get far before a pair of X-wings appeared overhead, firing a warning shot into the sand in front of the barges.

Leia looked back at Luke in surprise. He smiled.

They had all come to rescue her.

The rancor finally, horribly, fell, but not before taking most of Jabba’s men on the ground with it. 

Han and Chewie scrambled off just in time. 

Leia turned her attention to Jabba, now positioned at the bow of the barge.

“Well, gangster scum,” Jabba bellowed in Huttese, “I wish I had more time to torment you, but it is time for you to die.” She could see him raise a remote. 

“No!” she screamed. There were still people inside. They were all still too close to the building. 

They were so close to being out of this nightmare.

She could hear, faintly behind her, the sound of Luke yelling instructions to Wedge over the comms. Whatever it was, it wouldn't be enough. They were out of options.

Leia raised her fist and clenched it. 

The remote was crushed into a mess of wiring and components. Jabba bellowed again in rage, and was suddenly struck silent. He began to claw uselessly at his own throat. 

Some of his lieutenants began to fire at her. Unthinking, as a reflex, she reached out her other hand and swatted the blaster bolts away. They stung her hand on impact, but she was otherwise unharmed. 

Jabba and his men had done so much damage to others.

He had killed her friends and crew. 

He had robbed and threatened farmers, including her aunt and uncle. 

He had enslaved innocents. 

He was, in summary, an evil creature. 

She was just doing what she had to do. 

To save her friends.

To avenge the dead.

To preserve the living. 

She clenched her fist harder. Her other hand swept the blasters out of the hands of his lieutenants. Jabba himself was even more of a mess than usual; his tongue wriggled like it was trying to escape his mouth. 

Leia gave one final squeeze and snapped the Hutt’s neck. Within a few seconds, it was over. 

She exhaled in relief.

It was only then that she noticed that Han was staring at her in astonishment.

With the barest hint of fear. 


	3. Redemption

Luke had bided his time, Leia realized with some annoyance. He had waited till she had returned from checking in on her aunt and uncle, till they were in Mos Eisley, till Han and Chewie had left to go help the former slaves of Jabba’s palace plan what they were going to do next, till Wedge and her squadmates had flown back to rejoin the Rebel forces, till Winter and Lando had left to go do… something? Han had left with a look of concern, but had said nothing about what he had seen. 

There was nothing wrong with what he had seen, Leia reminded herself. She had just done what had to be done. 

Nevertheless, she should have expected that Luke would confront her about it. He even, very politely, had waited until she had taken a shower on the  _ Falcon  _ and gotten something to eat. 

“I’m still recovering from hibernation sickness,” she said lightly. “No whiskey for me until that wears off.”

“You killed him, didn’t you?” he asked, sitting down across from her at the table where she had been eating. 

“Yes,” she said, trying to keep from snapping at him. She didn’t need this right now. There were other things they could talk about. 

“With the Force.”

“ _ Yes _ .”

“With the Dark Side of the Force.”

“So?” she responded. 

Luke blinked in surprise. Leia felt a small bit of satisfaction in that. “Is that really the answer you want to go with?” he asked. 

“Sure,” she said. 

“You’re a Jedi. You’re trained in the ways of the Light Side of the Force. And you just used the Dark Side and your answer is ‘so’?”

“Why are you lecturing me on this?” she snapped. 

“Because that was  _ extremely disturbing _ ?” he said, sounding almost confused. “You were angry. You were full of hate.”

“Of course I was. He was going to kill everyone.” 

“And you don’t think that what you did was even a  _ little _ problematic?”

“Unless I’m mistaken, you didn’t suddenly become a Jedi Master when I was frozen in carbonite.”

“So?” he asked.

“And that’s the answer you want to go with?” she snarked. 

Luke rolled his eyes. 

“Look,” she continued. “I just… I think that there might be certain actions that aren’t inherently good or evil. And I don’t think it was evil to kill someone who was evil.”

“That’s not what I was concerned about,” he said. 

“Oh really? You would have been more comfortable if I had strangled him with my bare hands? Would that have somehow made a difference?”

“Leia, come on. This has… okay, so I confronted some fairly ugly realities about myself recently. Some memories that I tried to bury for good came flooding back, and I’m dealing with all of these actions I had taken that were… evil. I was committing acts that were evil. And I’m still trying to deal with that.”

“Well,” Leia said, a little unnerved, “that must be really hard for you. But I think you might be projecting on me more than a little.”

“I know there’s a darkness inside me, Leia. And… and I think I sensed the same darkness inside you.”

“This isn’t me falling to the Dark Side, Luke. This is me using a power to do  _ good _ .” She sighed in frustration. “I saved everyone today; Jabba was about to blow up the palace and kill us all and I stopped him. And then I stopped him from hurting anyone else, ever again.”

“And you think he couldn’t have been reasoned with? That there wasn’t any good inside of him?”

“Are you insane?” Leia said, exasperated. “You think I’m just going to go up to Jabba, have a cup of tea with him, and then suddenly he’s not a murderous slave-trading drug lord? You know  _ nothing _ about how the real world works. Some people are just irredeemable.”

Luke shut his eyes. “I’m just asking because…” But he couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Spit it out, Luke.”

He opened them. “I did something terrible. To a lot of people, actually. But one of them was Han. I mind-tricked him into helping me at the Battle of Yavin.”

“You what?”

“And then I used the Force to make him forget.” He hung his head as Leia tried to process this new information. “I even made myself forget.”

“Have you told him?”

“Yes. He’s… obviously not happy with me.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t have Chewie break your neck.”

“He tried. I owe Lando and Winter for stopping him.” He rubbed his neck absentmindedly. “That was the second time that day someone tried to strangle me.”

“Who was the other one?”

“Vader. I tried… He was toying with me. And worse, he’s…”

“He’s our father,” Leia finished grimly. “He used to be Anakin Skywalker.”

“Did he tell you too?”

“I… sort of had an inside track, in a way. I saw his memories, sensed his feelings about our mother. Oh!” she was suddenly excited, though weariness had crept into her voice. “I went to Naboo! I met our mother’s family! You have got to go visit at some point: there are about a billion of them and they’ll all try to stuff you so full of food you’ll never walk again and—”

Luke held up a hand to stop her. “You don’t seem… bothered by this?”

“About Vader? No. Fuck him,” she said firmly. “And that was  _ before _ he tried to impale me with a lightsaber.”

“How did you survive?”

“Another use of the Force: given enough time, I was able to heal myself. It’s not perfect and for all I know I have two spleens now, but I’m alive and moving.” She saw his concerned look. “I’ll get myself checked out by an Alliance medical droid the first chance I get, okay?”

Luke continued looking upset. “What is it?” she asked. 

“He… he asked me to join him,” Luke said, almost as though each word was torture to say. Leia imagined that it probably was. “I told you he was toying with me and that was why. So he could make his offer. Rule the galaxy. Stop the war.”

Leia’s jaw dropped slightly. “What did you do?”

“I cut his damn hand off,” Luke said with a laugh. It sounded bleak, though. 

“Well, good.”

“I’m not sure it did much. It was just wires and machinery underneath. He didn’t even react.”

“I mean, for all we know he’s just a head on a droid’s body,” Leia pointed out. 

“More machine than man,” Luke mused. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Did he give you that crap about using your anger?”

“He did.”

“What a load of bantha poodoo,” she grumbled. 

“I mean…” Luke started, and then stopped. 

She sighed. “What now?”

“I  _ did _ release my anger. I tapped into the Dark Side to beat him back. I…” and here he shuddered. “It was like there was this other voice in my head, telling me what to do. Like I couldn’t control myself.” 

“What other voice?” she asked, uncomfortably. 

“It was me, but a colder and crueler version. One who wouldn’t flinch at killing. Who might even enjoy it. A version that craves power, that views other people as… as  _ nothing. _ ”

Leia thought back to the last time she used the gun turret on the  _ Falcon _ . How she had become overcome by the gory beauty of it all. How she had never wanted it to stop. That feeling that she could take on the entire Empire single-handled and kill them all. 

That couldn’t be the Dark Side, she told herself. That was just  _ common sense _ talking. Sure, a little bit of an overinflated ego, but killing Imperials wasn’t evil. She was fighting a war; that was part of the job. 

But that still didn’t explain when she reached into that TIE pilot’s mind and forced him to let her kill him. She would have gotten him anyway, but she was frustrated and angry and impatient and had acted without thinking. 

Is it the Dark Side if you don’t mean to do it?

Is it the Dark Side if you’re doing it for the greater good?

“And that voice… that part of me… it’s been with me for almost as long as I can remember,” he said. “It doesn’t help that I’m kind of an entitled jerk who won’t take no for an answer anyway, and adding Force powers into the mix… half of the things I’ve done have been accidents or unintentional. If I really let myself go, if I do these things intentionally… I could do some terrifying things.” He put his head in his hands, with his elbows on the table. “Hell, I’ve  _ done _ terrifying things.”

“And so you saw me being a little scary and you jumped to the conclusion that I’m dealing with the same struggle you are,” she said.

“I mean,” he said, looking up at her, “aren’t you?”

She sighed. “I don’t know anymore.”

“Do you ever worry that, because we’re his kids, we’re just doomed no matter what we do?”

“What, like being evil is somehow in our blood?” she asked, skeptically. “I don’t think it works like that.”

“Can you imagine if we hadn’t been hidden away?”

Leia found that she  _ could _ imagine it. Two young children, raised by a homicidal maniac and instructed in the Dark Side since birth, at the helm of a sadistic Empire. 

They would have torn the galaxy to pieces.  

She shivered. 

“I guess there  _ are  _ worse places to live than Tatooine,” she said, trying to make a joke out of it. It fell flat. 

They were silent together for a long time, until Leia’s frustration finally boiled over. “I can’t  _ believe _ Ben didn’t tell me.”

“About what?”

“About Vader being our father. All this time, I thought Anakin Skywalker was this great Jedi who died heroically at the hands of a Sith menace, and it turns out that he  _ was _ the Sith menace all along.” She noticed her fists starting to clench. “I just don’t understand why he would do that.”

“I would have thought it was obvious,” Luke said gently. “We’re having enough trouble coping with the reality of it now; how would we have been able to handle it as little kids?”

“I would have been able to handle it,” Leia said. She gave Luke a determined look. “I  _ would _ have,” she insisted.

“I bet,” Luke said with a smile, “I bet you would have found the first ship off Tatooine and headed straight to Coruscant.”

“And then done what, exactly?”

“You tell me,” Luke said.

“I…” Leia hesitated. “I don’t know.” She gave him a calculating look. “What about you? What would you have done?”

Luke remembered his conversations with Bail as a child. Mercy versus justice. The problem of good and evil. 

_ Sometimes you have to decide. Do you punish an evil person or try to turn them back to the light? _

“I would have tried to save him.” He sighed. “I would have tried to find the good in him.”

Leia looked at him like he had grown two heads. “Are you serious?”

“I think…” Luke frowned. “I think there’s hope for anyone. Even him.”

“After everything he’s done? Killing all those people?”

“We’ve killed people,” he said. 

“That’s different,” she said. “He helped destroy an entire planet.  _ Your  _ planet.”

“How much is too much? How many evil things do you have to do before you’re too far gone?” he demanded. “One person? A hundred? A billion? Where’s the line, Leia?”

“What are you talking about?” she said.

“ _ Me. _ I’m talking about me. How many minds have I manipulated? How many times have I violated people’s consent? Am I too far gone for redemption?”

“I… I don’t know. Why does it matter? These are two different things!”

“No, they’re not. Not to me. If there’s hope for him, for our father, then there’s hope for me too.” He put his head back down into his hands. “I have to believe that.” He looked back up at her, and something in his eyes hardened. “And if you keep going down the path that you’re going down, you’re going to need that hope too.”

“What do you even know about the Force, Luke? All you’re doing is just navel-gazing and whining about moral relativism and it’s  _ pointless _ . You’re talking about things you have no idea about.”

He looked at her stonily. “I know more than you think. While you were gone, I found a Jedi Master.”

“You  _ what _ ? Who?”

“Come to Dagobah with me,” he said with a sudden intensity. “He’s been waiting there for  _ you _ . He was never waiting to train me; that’s why I left. It was always supposed to be you. I’ll take you there.”

“What, now?”

“And listen: when I was there, I heard him talking to Obi-Wan.”

Leia went still. “What are you talking about?” she breathed. 

“I know this sounds crazy, but his  _ ghost _ was there. Yoda talked to him. He seemed… really nonchalant about the whole thing, actually,” said Luke, frowning. “But he was  _ there. _ You could talk to him, get some answers.”

“If he was out there,” Leia said slowly, “then… why didn’t he try to talk to me?”

“Well,” said Luke, taking her hand, “that can be the first question you ask him. Now come on.”

She freed her hand from his before he could pull her out of her seat. “Hang on, I’ve been a piece of wall art for months. There are a few more things I should take care of first.”

“Then take care of them!” Luke said, with growing excitement.

“Just remember this the next time I start yelling about Naboo, okay?”

* * *

“I don’t like this at all,” Han said uneasily.

“He told me what happened,” Leia said. She was already lying in his arms, but she snuggled closer, as if it would make her even more present than she already was. 

“And yet you’re going with him anyway.”

“It’s not about him,” Leia said. “This is Jedi stuff.”

“Yeah, fine. Jedi stuff.”

“I need to get my head together,” Leia admitted. “I know you’re trying not to talk about what I did at Jabba’s palace but…”

“It’s part of a pattern, I’ve noticed,” Han said. 

“If I can just get a little more training, maybe things will be better.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek. “The Rebellion’s survived without me for a few months already; they can wait a little more while I learn some new superpowers.”

“And me?” Han asked, pulling her in tighter. 

She gave him another kiss. “I think you’ll have to survive without me for a little longer too. But I’ll be coming back to you first.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”


	4. Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everyone yells at each other... but on the bright side, no one dies?

“You’re right,” Leia said as they left the ship and ventured into the swamp, “This place is really the anti-Tatooine.”

Luke had to agree; the contrast between the two planets was stark, especially when traveling directly from one to the other. On the other hand, figuring out where to put your feet while walking seemed to be a constant. 

Every spot they passed seemed to bring back a different memory: the routes he had taken while running, the clearing where he practiced telekinesis, the path to the cave that had shown him those horrible visions. 

Every spot was tainted with the knowledge of how he had failed. 

“What’s he like, this Yoda?” Leia asked, jarring him out of his thoughts.

“Small. Green. Talks strangely. Kind of passive-aggressive, if I’m being honest,” Luke said. “His house is just up ahead. I hope you’re not claustrophobic.”

Luke waited outside while Leia entered. Not only would he not have fit inside the house with her, he wasn’t ready to face Yoda again. 

As he waited, he saw movement in the trees leading away from Yoda’s home. 

Probably just a wild animal, he thought. But when he saw it again, he noticed that it glowed with a bluish hue. 

This wasn’t normal for Dagobah. He checked to make sure he was wearing his blaster and followed it. 

It was only a few minutes of walking before he realized where it was leading him: back to the cave.

* * *

Yoda was exactly as Luke had described him, though he apparently forgot to tell her that he was also really, really old.

“For hundreds of years,” Yoda said by way of introduction, “have I trained Jedi in the ways of the Force. Now 900 years old I have reached. My last pupil, you will be.” He leaned on his walking stick and sighed heavily. “Or perhaps not. Arrived too late, you may have.”

“What?” Leia asked. “Are you dying?”

“Many years I have lived here, waiting for a new generation of Jedi to seek me out,” he sighed. “But waited too long, I have.”

“Well, it’s not like it was easy to find you,” Leia pointed out. She frowned. “I mean, Luke got some sort of mystical vision telling him where to go. Why didn’t I?”

“Anger, I sense in you. Blocking you from feeling the Force, it has.”

“No! I’ve been using it all the time!”

“Using the Force,” Yoda said, “is not the same as being open to it. Blocked yourself off to its currents, you have.”

“Are you serious?” she said. “Because, no offense, that’s nonsense.”

“Waited for you, I have,” Yoda said, appearing to grow frustrated as well. “But come here, you do, with anger in your heart. Receptive to my teachings you would not be, the same as your brother.”

“So you’re just washing your hands of the both of us,” Leia said bitterly.

“Our last hope, you were! But came here to train, you did not. Remembered Obi-Wan’s teachings, you did not. The Dark Side beckons to you, and you allow it to have power over you. Guilt, you do not feel.”

“I’m not going to feel guilty for killing people who are evil.”

“It is not them who you should be focused on. On your own choices, you should be. The Dark Side, seductive it is. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.”

“Well, if I’m such a screw-up, then tell me what I’m supposed to do now. Or are you just interested in yelling at me?”

“The Trials are approaching. Confront Vader again, you must.”

“Oh, I plan to,” she said. 

“Not as easy as it sounds. Only through the Light Side of the Force will you truly triumph. If kill him you do with hate in your heart, then the Emperor has won.”

“Won what, exactly?”

“A new Vader.”

“Don’t you dare,” Leia hissed. “Don’t you  _ dare _ . I’m nothing like him.”

“More alike than you know,” Yoda said. “For you, it can be your downfall. Seen into his mind, you have.”

Leia froze. “How did you know that?”

“Through the Force have I watched you. Watched your mind call out to Vader.”

“That was an accident.”

“The Force showed you what you needed to see. Vader too started down the road to darkness out of love for his friends and hatred of his enemies. Justified, he thought he was. But as time passed, his friends grew fewer and his enemies grew more numerous, until turned against his closest companions he did.”

“I would never do that.”

“Then prove it, you must. Only then, a Jedi will you be.”

“Fine,” she snapped. 

“Go now, you must. Another waits to talk with you.” And with that, Yoda turned his back on her. 

She left.

* * *

The cave was empty as he entered.

And then, suddenly, it wasn’t. 

He had only seen her in a single photograph. Here, she looked older, like a grown woman. 

“Mother?” he asked tentatively. What kind of vision  _ was _ this?

“Luke,” Padme said. “I’ve waited so long to see you.” She was sitting on a rock that Luke could have sworn hadn’t been there before. The air around her shimmered with a faint blue light.

“I… I wish I could have known you,” he admitted. 

“If it had been within my power to live,” she said, “I would have stayed for you and your sister. But some things are out of our control.” She gave a sad smile. “Many things in my life were out of my control.”

“Like our father becoming Darth Vader?” he asked. 

She nodded. “I saw the changes happening in him. By the time I realized what that would mean, it was already too late. I tried loving him anyway, hoping to find some shred of goodness still within him, but it was gone. There was nothing I could do.”

“So he’s irredeemable, then,” Luke said, his heart sinking.

She nodded again. “There are some things that are just too big for us to handle. Things that were set in motion long before I was ever in a position to intervene. But I still blame myself.”

“What do I do, then?” he asked. 

She leaned in closer to him. “Kill him.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. There had to be another way. 

“There’s no hope left for him. Killing him would not only put him out of his misery, but it would also save the galaxy. Without him, Palpatine’s power is weakened. He can be overthrown and we could finally be at peace.”

He couldn’t look her in the eyes. “I can’t kill my own father, even if I wanted to. He’s too strong.”

“You’re wrong,” she said, a touch of ferocity in her tone. “You have the power within you. Let it out.”

“Any time I do that, I end up using the Dark Side,” Luke protested. 

“Then  _ use it _ . Do whatever it takes.”

“No!” he cried. 

“Don’t you see what the stakes are, Luke? The whole galaxy hangs in the balance and it’s up to  _ you _ to save it. If it means sacrificing yourself to the Dark Side of the Force, isn’t that worth it?” She grabbed him by the wrist and he recoiled.

This wasn’t what he thought she would be like. This wasn’t the smiling woman in the photograph. This wasn’t the same woman that Bail had spoken of with such admiration. 

Something was off about this. 

He realized what it was. “I thought only Jedi left Force ghosts behind.”

Padme gave him an ugly smile. “Very clever.” She stood and began to walk towards him. He backed away. 

“Stop! Who are you really?” he asked. He flung out a hand to ward her off and she stopped. 

Her hands went to her throat and her eyes filled with fear. “You’re breaking my heart,” she whispered as her breathing began to cut off. 

“What’s happening?” he asked. 

“Stop,” she gasped. “Please! I love you!”

“I’m not doing this!” Luke pleaded. 

She wasn’t looking at him anymore. 

Luke turned to look behind him; there was now another person in the cave. A man about his own age, dressed in black, holding out a black-gloved hand held in a fist. 

His eyes began to glow a terrifying gold, but before they did, Luke saw their original color.

They were the same color as his own. 

Padme fell to the ground and went still. Anakin turned his attention to Luke. 

“Only the Dark Side can save you, Luke.”

“Stop,” Luke said, frozen in terror. “Stop this.”

“It is the only way.”

“No, there has to be another way!”

“It is your destiny.”

“Get out of my head!” Luke screamed. Anakin began to fade, but in the most horrible way. His arms and legs rotted away as the rest of his body became covered in horrible burns. Anakin screamed in agony and vanished.

Padme had vanished as well. 

Luke could still feel the echoes of the vision in his mind. 

The cave could show truths, he knew, but also lies. 

There had to be another way. 

* * *

Ben’s ghost was waiting for her outside Yoda’s house. He sat on a nearby log, still visible through his semi-translucent body.

He looked just like she remembered him. 

“Why did you lie to me?” she asked. “Why didn’t you tell me that Darth Vader was my father? Why did you say that he betrayed and murdered my father?”

Ben looked pained, but replied calmly, “Your father was seduced by the dark side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. So what I have told you was true... from a certain point of view.”

“A certain point of view? No offense, Ben, but that has got to be the biggest load of bantha poodoo I’ve ever heard in my entire life.” She gave him a pointed glare. “You lied to me. You let me grow up thinking that my father was some kind of hero.”

“Which he  _ was, _ before he turned to evil.”

“And even when I grew up, you still didn’t tell me,” she said. “Why?”

Ben stayed silent. Then Leia knew. “You thought I wouldn’t kill him if I knew he was my father,” she said breathlessly. 

After a moment, Ben nodded.

“You weren’t training me to be a Jedi Knight, were you? You were training me to be an  _ assassin _ ,” she said accusingly. “So that I would kill him and then poof! The galaxy is saved? The Jedi win after all?” She looked at him in disgust. “So that was why Yoda didn’t want to train me now: I figured out that Vader was my father and ruined the whole plan, because there was a chance that I might not have the guts to go through with killing him.” 

She shook her head. “Well, you’re wrong. It doesn’t matter to me that he’s my father. I’m still going through with it, not because that’s what you trained me for, or because that’s what will finally make me an official Jedi, but because  _ he needs to die _ .”

“Because you hate him.”

“Exactly.”

“And then what?” Ben asked. “Then what happens? You find the next evil person and throttle them to death?”

“Sure, why not?”

“And if the Rebellion disagrees?”

“Then screw them. I’ll do what I have to do.”

“Even if it means using the Dark Side?”

“Yes!” Leia shouted at him.

“Did I teach you  _ nothing _ ?” he said. “You’re lying to yourself. You know, deep down, that you’re facing a crisis. You know that your dalliance with the Dark Side is a problem, and that every time you use it, it gets a little easier. Your friends get a little further away. And you slip one step closer to evil.”

Leia was silent for a long time. 

“Leia,” said Ben, “I don’t want to lose you the way I lost Vader.”

She looked at him bitterly. “You’re using me to clean up your mistakes.”

“I never used you, Leia. I taught you the best way I knew how.” He sighed. “It wasn’t perfect, I know, but I tried to instill the values of the Jedi in you.”

“And what were those values, exactly?” Leia demanded. “No attachments, no emotions, nothing that would teach me how to be a real person.”

“That’s no reason to abandon them entirely,” Ben said, exasperated. “You think there’s something wrong with them, fine. Find a better way.”

“Don’t play passive-aggressive with me, Ben,” Leia warned. 

“I’m not. I mean it: find something better than the Dark Side. Something better than the Jedi. What becomes of the Jedi is now up to you. You are the last of our order.” His expression softened. “Find the light, Leia, however you end up getting there. And remember: the Force is more than a tool; it is so much bigger than that.”

“It sounds like you’re saying goodbye,” she said. 

“I am. But know that I will always be watching over you. And that the Force will always be with you.”

* * *

She found Luke back at the ship. He had been crying.

“What happened?” she asked. 

He shook his head. “Let’s just go, okay?”


	5. Interlude: Daughter

His agents had brought him information from Tatooine. 

So she wasn’t dead after all. Vader couldn’t help but be impressed. He knew what it was to come that close to death and endure. 

But for now, he was in danger. He was more distracted than he had ever been before. Something was rising within him. Something he couldn’t stop or control. He was coming apart and was only now beginning to understand why.

Pride. 

He was  _ proud _ of her. 

He learned how she handled herself in battle. How she used the Force to strangle Jabba to death on his own barge. Deflected blaster bolts with her bare hands. Taken on entire squads of stormtroopers and lived. 

He learned how, as a young girl, she had nearly eradicated the slave trade on Tatooine, ensuring that people like him and his mother would never live in bondage there again.  She had brokered deals with Tusken Raiders. Traded with Jawas. Kept law and order on a lawless world. 

In short, she had done everything he wished he could have done had he ever been able to bear setting foot on that world again. 

He had assumed she was like her mother. Strong, but too full of pity to take control of others. 

He had assumed wrong. She was so much like him that it chilled him to the core. 

“Patience, my friend,” the Emperor had told him. “In time, she will seek you out.”

The boy may have been a prodigy of the Dark Side, but she was more willing to use it. She would turn to the Dark Side easily. 

After all, he had done the same thing.


	6. Severed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything that could possibly go wrong goes wrong.

“He wouldn’t train you?” Luke asked, surprised, once they left the atmosphere.

“No,” Leia said, grimly. “Apparently I was too late. All he did was yell at me for being angry and then kicked me out.”

“Did you… did you talk to Ben?” Luke asked, tentatively.

Leia nodded, but didn’t answer in words. Her thoughts were too confused.

She tried to remember the last time she felt guilty over something. Probably sending Han away before they went to Bespin. But something about that felt very far away now.

Was she losing her ability to feel remorse?

“Once we’re in hyperspace, I’m going to go meditate,” she told Luke. He nodded. She noticed that he still looked subdued.

“Hey,” she said. “If you ever want to talk about—”

The comms beeped. Leia answered them; it was Commander Willard.

“Good to hear from you again, Captain Skywalker. Glad you’re all right.”

“Thanks, Commander,” she said.

“I understand from Socorro and Terra that you’re still in the Outer Rim?”

“Yes,” Leia said. “We’ll be back at Kilo Base shortly.”

“Not yet. We need you to get to Malastare. There’s a crucial information drop happening but the Bothans are saying that they’re on the run from Imperials in the system. I’m sending you the coordinates now; get there and get them out.”

“Understood. We’ll rendezvous with the fleet when we’re done,” Leia said, switching off the comm. She looked at Luke. “I guess we’ll have to wait.”

* * *

They emerged from hyperspace into chaos. The Bothans had come ready to fight, but they were up against an Imperial Star Destroyer and all the weapons that it could bring to bear.

“Does this ship have gun turrets?” she asked Luke.

He shook his head. “Just front guns.”

“Then scoot over and let me fly this thing.” She took his seat in the pilot’s chair.

She reminded herself of their objective: get to the transfer point, extract the spies, and then get out. The Bothan fleet would hold the Imperials off until then. No distractions.

The ship didn’t move as fast as the _Falcon_ , but its side-to-side maneuverability was impressive for an ultra-light cruiser. Leia kept ahead of the turbolaser blasts from the Star Destroyer, moving bit by bit towards the planet’s surface.

While trying to evade a TIE fighter that had followed them, Leia felt a sudden jolt through the Force.

_Leia…_

“Luke… we’ve got a problem.”

“What is it?”

She swallowed her fear. “Vader’s here.”

“I can’t sense him.”

“I’m having trouble finding his location myself,” she admitted. “I think he’s hiding himself.”

_Leia, come to me…_

“Get out of my head, asshole,” she muttered, finally getting the TIE fighter in her sights.

“Do you need my help?” Luke asked carefully.

“Yeah, actually,” she said. “Can you distract him while I try and get us through the lines? Him being in my head isn’t exactly me fly this thing.”

Luke nodded. Leia kept sneaking glances at him. He appeared to be straining to keep himself under control.

“I see him,” he finally said, eyes closed. “He’s on the Star Destroyer. They’re making a run for the plans now.”

“The plans?”

Luke opened his eyes suddenly. “Oh no.” He seemed to have only just realized what he had said.

“ _Another_ damn superweapon?”

“I don’t know, but it doesn’t sound good. We have to hurry; I think we’re running out of time.”

“I’m working on it, okay?” she said impatiently. “Any chance you could mind-trick some of those TIE fighters away?”

“What?” Luke asked, surprised.

“Just do it. You said we didn’t have much time. We can get there faster if we can get those TIEs off our backs.”

“Leia, that hasn’t worked well for me in the past.”

“We can debate the morality of it later. Right now, we need to do _something_.”

“Leia, I _can’t._ ”

Leia let out a sound of frustration. “Okay, fine _._ I’ll figure something out.”

She turned the ship to face the Star Destroyer and gunned the engines, flying at it head-on.

 _Okay, Father, you want me to come to you?_ she thought. _Well, here I come._

The bridge of the ship grew larger in the cockpit window.

Closer.

Closer.

Barely a hundred meters from the bridge, she took a sudden dive and plummeted towards the planet.

“We’re directly in the path of the ship’s main turbolasers!” Luke yelled.

“Yeah, it’s a pretty clear avenue, isn’t it? Barely any ships here.”

“Because there are _turbolasers_ firing into it!”

“Well, you wouldn’t do my original plan,” she pointed out. “So I had to improvise.”

“Leia, that suggestion wasn’t okay.”

“Ben used a mind trick on some stormtroopers on Tatooine. It’s not inherently evil.”

“I’m still not comfortable using it,” Luke replied. He looked upset.

“Sorry,” she said, weaving between turbolaser blasts as they continued their descent to the planet. “I should have remembered.”

“Yeah,” he said flatly. “You should have.”

“How far are we from the coordinates?” she asked as they entered the atmosphere.

“About 200 kilometers,” he said, providing the heading as well.

They landed in a clearing, which was eerily quiet.

“Do you think they found another way off-world?” she asked.

Luke shook his head. “I have a bad feeling about this.” They ventured into the surrounding woods.

“Not even the wildlife is making a sound…” Luke said, nervously.

Leia stretched out with the Force and felt… absence. What happened here? She drew her blaster.

Just when she thought her nerves couldn’t be stretched any further, her comm clicked. “Rogue team, this is Kothlis. Do you copy?”

Leia replied, “We copy, Kothlis. Are you ready to go?”

“We’re triangulating your location now. Give us ten minutes and we’ll be there.”

“Any unfriendlies in the area?”

“Nothing,” the Bothan agent said. “We’ll watch our step; something strange is going on.”

“See you in a few, then. Rogue out.” She turned to Luke. “Head back to the ship and get it ready to go.”

He nodded and left.

It had been about five minutes when Leia heard a blaster fire. Her shoulder erupted in agony.

Stormtroopers began to move through the forest towards her.

The next few minutes passed in a blur. Leia ducked behind trees, dodged blaster fire, and tried to use the Force to disarm troopers whenever she could. Her shoulder felt like it was on fire. She returned fire when she could, but since it had been her right shoulder that was injured, her ability to use a blaster had become grievously limited.

And in the back of her mind, everything seemed to scream _Danger! Danger!_

She was about to run back to the ship when a bloodied Bothan emerged from the underbrush.

“How many of you are there?” she asked, ducking down next to the agent.

The Bothan coughed, staining the fur on his chin with blood. “Just me left. The rest… stormtroopers, like here.” He pulled a data disc out of his jacket. “Made it this far… take it.”

“I can pull you out of here,” she said. Shoulder or no shoulder, she knew she could do it.

“No time. More coming…” He coughed again. “Go.”

Leia felt a blaster bolt graze her back, leaving it stinging with pain.

“Go!”

She ran.

By the time she reached the ship, she had taken two more blaster bolts: one to the same arm as her shoulder wound, and another to her left calf. If she hadn’t had the Force to draw on, she never would have made it back.

“Luke, we’ve got to go!” she yelled, running up the ship.

There was no response from the cockpit.

“Luke?” she said, heading up to find him. She searched through the ship frantically. Luke was gone.

She collapsed into the pilot’s chair and reached out with the Force.

 _Luke?_ she called.

_Leia!_

She saw an array of images flash through her mind. They had been waiting for him back at the ship. There were too many of them to fight.

As her ship reached low-orbit, she could tell where he was: on board the Star Destroyer.

With Vader.

 _Luke!_ she called again, frantically.

 _Le—_ But he was cut off as the Star Destroyer went to hyperspace.

* * *

Hyperspace had severed their connection, Luke realized as the hum of the ship changed.

It was like the Death Star all over again. He suppressed a shudder of fear. Surely they knew it would be useless to interrogate him by now.

Vader was here. He could sense him clearly now, and worked to build up his mental defenses.

Only he couldn’t stop thinking about how that was his _father_. The same monster who had made him an offer that he could barely stand to think about even now.

 _Join_ _me_ , he had said.

The same monster who had tortured him on the Death Star. 

The same monster who had looked at him on the bridge of the Death Star in… horror?

 _What… are you?_ he had asked Luke.

Luke didn’t know anymore.

It was only then that he realized he still had a blaster.

He could try and escape; he just had to wait for someone to open the door to his cell.

After about twenty minutes, a pair of battle droids entered the cell and began firing. Luke flung himself past them into the hall.

 _Do something, do something_ , his mind cried in panic. He reached out with the Force and pushed them into the cell, then slammed his hand on the mechanism to close the door, locking the droids in his cell.

Luke was breathing heavily. In fact, he was having trouble catching his breath. He began to gasp for air.

Falling to his hands and knees, he realized what must have happened: they had taken the air out of the corridor.

* * *

He woke up back in his cell with a raging headache. And his blaster.

Five minutes later, the droids came to kill him again. He tried shutting them in his cell again but the doors wouldn’t lock. He took a blaster bolt in the side before finally shooting them both to pieces.

He at least made it to the blast door before the they cut off the air again.

* * *

He woke up back in his cell with a headache, his blaster, and a stinging wound on his left side. The droid’s blasters must not have been full power.

When the next pair of droids came, he was ready; the door had barely opened before he shot them down.

He stayed in his cell. About twenty minutes later, the next pair of droids arrived.

* * *

Three pairs of droids later, Luke’s blaster was out of power. They must have drained it before giving it to him.

He darted past the latest pair and made it to the blast doors, which remained shut. Fortunately, the air was still working.

The droids were coming towards him. One shot caught him in the leg; the next one in the stomach. Unless he acted quickly, he was going to be incapacitated.

He gave them a weak shove with the Force.

He was so tired. He was in so much pain.

He let go.

Force lighting flew from his fingers, blowing both droids into scrap metal.

Then the air cut out again and he passed out.

* * *

So it continued for the next eight hours.

* * *

He woke up with a headache and his hands in cuffs. He was already upright, being moved by a pair of stormtroopers towards a shuttle.

Vader was waiting for him there.

“I see you have survived your first lesson,” he said.

“Lesson?” Luke asked. He was too tired and disoriented to even touch the Force. It felt like everything had been drained out of him. His speech sounded thick.

“The Emperor has been waiting to see you for some time now. Your apprenticeship in the ways of the Dark Side has begun.”

“I’ll never give in,” Luke said softly.

“Good,” said Vader.

Luke looked at him in confusion. But Vader said nothing more.

* * *

From the brief glimpse that he was able to grab while being escorted off of the shuttle, he knew he was on Coruscant. He recognized the unique metallic tang in the air.

Where he was, he couldn’t be sure. But soon he was inside, being marched through a series of lavish rooms until, at last, he found himself before the Emperor himself.

Luke had seen him before, of course, from his days in the Senate. But never this close. He realized why the Emperor had kept his distance: he was a nearly desiccated husk of a person. Luke wondered how he was still even alive.

An odor of sweet rot pervaded the room. His cuffs were removed.

“At last,” Palpatine said, in his steel creak of a voice, “Luke Skywalker.”

"Organa," Luke corrected him, then asked, “What do you want with me?” Some of his energy was coming back, though he knew that he was surrounded by guards and the chances of escape were slim.

But there might be something he could do…

“Ah, yes. You see, my young apprentice, your training begins now.”

“I’ll never join you,” Luke growled.

The Emperor merely laughed. “I sense your anger growing, young Skywalker. Let it build and then give yourself over to it.”

“No,” he whispered, fighting for control.

“It is unavoidable.”

He was right.

There was nothing else Luke could do.

But maybe he could make it count for something.

With a cry, Luke extended his right hand towards the Emperor and channeled lightning into it.

Before he could release it, though, Vader drew his lightsaber and brought it down, cutting Luke’s hand off at the wrist.

Luke fell to the ground, screaming in agony and terror.

“An impressive attempt,” Vader said, “but you would be unwise to try it again.”

“Go,” the Emperor ordered. “Repair him. Continue his training.”

Luke was still gasping with pain as the stormtroopers hauled him to his feet.

“And then, my young apprentice,” the Emperor said to Luke, “you will fulfill your destiny.”


	7. Wounded

The  _ Millennium Falcon, _ it turned out, had rendezvoused with the Alliance fleet. 

Leia managed to bring her ship into the docking bay not far from it; a lucky thing, since she wasn’t sure she could make it across a ship in order to find Han with the blaster wound to her leg. 

He must have seen her ship docking, because he met her just outside her ship. “I see you kept your—” he began before seeing the look on her face. “What happened?”

“They got Luke. We were ambushed and they—Vader has him and we need to do something!” She began hobbling towards the center of the ship. Leg wound be damned, she was going to make sure they started a rescue mission as soon as possible.

“Whoa, whoa,” Han said, grabbing her arm to slow her down. “You look terrible. What happened to  _ you _ ?”

“Like I said, we got ambushed on Malastare.” She pulled the disc out of her pocket. “We have to get this to Commander Willard, the Bothans—Han, they all died and I was the only one to get out and they’re planning something big, the Empire is planning—” She was babbling. Han reached out to take her other arm and she hissed with pain as he touched the wound on her arm. 

He withdrew his hand quickly, then looked her up and down. “How many times did you get shot?”

“I don’t know, a few?”

“Leia, that is  _ too many times _ .”

“I’ll deal with it later.”

“No,” Han said firmly. “I’m taking you the medical frigate.  _ Now. _ No arguments; I’ll be surprised if you make it there without passing out.”

Leia  _ was _ beginning to get woozy, so she let Han guide her onto the  _ Falcon _ . She had been so keyed up from adrenaline that the moment she sat down again, everything began to pass in a blur. She wasn’t sure how long it took to get to the medical ship. 

“I’ve got wounded!” Han called over the comm. “Multiple blaster wounds.”

“We’ll prep a bacta tank,” an Alliance medic replied. Bring her to station B-18.”

“I don’t need a bacta tank,” Leia grumbled as Han helped her off the ship. “I just need to rest…”

“And you’ll  _ get _ rest,” Han reassured her. “Just inside a bacta tank, okay?”

Leia was new to the experience; bacta was a rare commodity on Tatooine. Most medical technology was. 

What it involved was being stripped down to medical-issued underwear, fitted with a respirator, and then dunked into a humanoid-sized tube of disgusting sickly-sweet liquid that was just thick enough to keep her from making any minor movements. 

She floated, weightless, in an uncomfortable space between sleep and wakefulness. 

She tried to relax, to let her thoughts flow freely through the Force. 

Past planets, nebulae, the strange hues of space dust making up the cosmos. 

Heading towards a warm light. 

A familiar light. 

Luke. 

_ Luke! _

_ Leia? _ she heard him ask. He sounded disoriented; his presence in the Force was embroidered with an outline of pain. He seemed to be in even rougher shape than she was. 

_ I’m sorry,  _ she said.  _ By the time I came back, you were already gone. I should have been more careful, I shouldn’t have— _

_ Leia, it’s okay.  _

_ Are  _ you  _ okay?  _ she asked.

He seemed to be unsure of how to respond. Leia prodded him a little bit through the Force.  _ Tell me, _ she said gently. Something about him was… missing. 

_ They cut off my hand _ , he said finally. He almost sounded ashamed. 

_ Oh, Luke… Where are you? _

_ Coruscant… I think.  _ A twist of images and emotions, spiraling into one another through a haze of disorientation.  _ Things have been… confusing.  _

_ How? _

_ How long have I been gone? _

_ About eighteen hours,  _ she said. 

_ It feels like days. Everything is so jumbled up here, I can’t think straight. There’s no time to sort things out.  _

She could feel it. He was in constant fear for his life, exhausted, and everything around him seemed to be pulling at him and he couldn’t stop it and he couldn’t hide from it and whatever prison they were keeping him in was going to eat him alive.

_ Just hang on, Luke. We’re coming for you. _

_ Careful… no… _

_ What do you mean? _

_ Vader is waiting for you too. Expecting you, even. I think he’s hoping to turn me before capturing you, but— _

_ Turning you? _

_ That’s what the plan is. They thought I would be easier because of… all that I’ve done— _

_ That’s not true, Luke. You’re strong, you can survive this. _

_ But what part of me survives, Leia?  _ Another sickening twist of images. Fear. Fury. Lightning made of hate. A wizened man’s laughter, echoing as though in a cave. A burning man with yellow eyes.

_ You can do it. You can resist the Dark Side.  _

_ I can sense your skepticism, you know.  _

_ That’s just fear talking, _ she said. She could feel her own fear struggling to rise to the surface.

_ I’m afraid too,  _ he said.

_ Just hold on until we get there.  _

_ I’ll try, _ he said. 

_ Don’t think about just trying, _ she said.  _ Think about doing it.  _

_ Leia… _

_ What? _

_ It’s going to be awhile until you come for me. I don’t know if I can last that long.  _

_ What do you mean?  _ she asked, confused.

_ The Empire is working on something huge. Something the Alliance has to stop. In comparison to that… that’s more important than rescuing me.  _

_ That’s ridiculous, _ she said.  _ You’re one of the leaders of the Rebellion. _

_ I’m still not as important as what you’ll be facing. And by the time you get here…  _ She could feel him shudder.  _ I might be one of them. _

_ No, you won’t, _ she said. _ Because I’m going to do whatever it takes to find you and bring you home.  _

_ They’re laying a trap for you, I think.  _

_ I’ll be okay, Luke. You focus on hanging on.  _

_ I have to— _

But she never heard the rest of what Luke had to do. A dark presence slammed down between them, cutting him off. 

Luke was a prisoner of an evil Sith Lord who was trying to turn him to the Dark Side. 

She hoped he could hang on. She didn’t know what she would do without him. 

* * *

Luke was right, though. There was to be no immediate rescue.

“You must understand what a difficult decision this is, Captain Skywalker,” Commander Willard said once she had finished yelling at him. He sounded tired. “The information you have provided from the Bothans have shifted our priorities.”

“Why can’t we do both?”

“Because while I’m honestly not sure if our current problem is a suicide mission, I can state with certainty that your plan would be. If he is being held on Coruscant like you say, it would mean storming the most highly guarded stronghold of the Empire for a single person. Luke has survived Imperial interrogation before; he knows what the stakes are.”

Not these stakes, Leia wanted to growl back. Luke might be prepared to lose his life for the cause of the Rebellion; she wasn’t sure about his soul.

But trying to explain that Luke could be turned to the Dark Side would involve explaining that he was Force-sensitive, which might also involve explaining all of the things that happened on Bespin, which would involve explaining that she and Luke were related and that Vader was their father… and she couldn’t bring herself to do any of those things. 

Besides, she reassured herself, Luke was a good person. He was compassionate and felt remorse and was willing to fight for the good of others. Flunking Jedi training didn’t have anything to do with that. Darth Vader could never turn him. 

She had to believe that. 

Mon Mothma had been silent until that point, and only now did she speak up. “Regardless of His Highness’ previous time in Imperial captivity, we may need to consider that any information he was privy to could be compromised.”

Commander Willard sighed. “I don’t  _ want  _ to consider it, but I think you have the right idea. We should move to contain the potential damage as quickly as possible.” He keyed his comm. “Madine, this is Willard. Prepare the fleet for travel to the next rendezvous point. No imminent danger, just a precaution at this point. I’ll brief you on the rest of it in an hour.” He switched off the comm and sighed again. “This is going to be a nightmare. He was involved in nearly every undercover operation in the Inner Rim recently. Up to a third of our Intelligence agents might be in danger.”

“You say this like he’s going to give us away,” Leia protested. 

Mon Mothma gave her a calculating look. “He’s saying this like someone who has the survival of the Rebellion on his shoulders. Unless I’m mistaken, you don’t.”

“Thank you for the information, Skywalker,” said Willard. “Dismissed.”

Leia stayed. “Permission to go rescue Luke myself?”

“Absolutely denied. Having one of our assets in an Imperial prison is more than enough.”

She remembered what Luke said:  _ They’re laying a trap for you. _

“Report to your squadron leader, Skywalker, and don’t cause any more trouble for the time being,” Willard said. 

* * *

Leia was too agitated to sit still. She paced back and forth on the  _ Falcon _ until Han had to finally stand in her way.

“There has to be a way to do it,” she said, barely looking at him. 

“To do what?” Han asked, even though it was fairly apparently what she was talking about. 

“Maybe I should just find the nearest Imperial outpost and start tearing it up until somebody hands over Luke,” she said, resuming pacing. “Or a Star Destroyer? That would get their attention.” 

“Just you, against a Star Destroyer?”

“I mean, I took out a Death Star, remember? There has to be some kind of weak point I could exploit. Maybe I should call Camie, see what she can figure out.” She paused. “Or maybe Lando and Winter? They rescued me from the middle of Jabba’s palace—”

“—which took months of planning and we still barely got out of there in one piece,” Han pointed out. “Leia, will you sit for just a second and  _ breathe _ ?”

“Luke is in danger!”

“Luke is a tough guy, he can take care of himself.”

“He’s being held by  _ Vader _ —”

“Which was exactly the same situation he was in on the Death Star, and he practically rescued himself that time.”

“This is different!” Leia protested.

“ _ How _ is it different?”

“It just is, okay!” Leia said with frustration. 

“Leia, what is going on here?” Han said, finally managing to corner her. “I’m not Luke’s biggest fan and I trust him about as far as I could throw the  _ Falcon _ , but I obviously don’t want him captured by the Empire either.  _ No one _ in the Rebellion does—”

“Then why aren’t they  _ doing  _ anything?” she demanded.

“Because they know that there’s nothing  _ to _ do right now. Why can’t you see that? What’s so special about Luke that you’ve completely lost all perspective?”

Leia bit back a dozen cruel retorts she could have given, screwed up her courage, and said, “Because he’s my brother.”

It took Han a second to absorb that information. He frowned in confusion. “Okay,  _ how _ ?”

“The, uh, the usual way? We were separated at birth.”

“Does that mean you’re literally some kind of princess?”

Leia shook her head. “No. But there’s more I need to tell you. And you’re not going to like it, but just listen because this is hard to talk about.”

Han nodded, slowly. 

“And I know this is going to sound too bizarre to believe, but I swear it’s true: Darth Vader is our father.”

“That’s… wow. That’s a lot,” he said, looking a little staggered. He looked at her closely. “Are  _ you _ okay? When did you find out?”

“About twenty seconds before he stabbed me in the stomach,” she said, trying to laugh. It came out hollow. 

Han put his arms around her and held her. “And you have to deal with that on top of everything else that’s going on.”

“It’s funny,” she said. “I was more upset at Ben for lying to me about it than anyone else.”

“It’s understandable, I guess. I mean, it’s a more concrete thing than trying to sort through… all the other stuff that this must be bringing up.” He frowned. “Does Luke know?”

Leia nodded and Han winced. “What?” she asked.

“After I found out… what he did to me, I told him that he was no better than Vader. That must have stung more than I thought.” He gave a grim look, however, that Leia read as  _ but I’m not going to apologize for it. _

“And now he’s captured Luke and they’re trying to turn him to the Dark Side—”

“They?” Han asked. 

That stopped her racing thoughts for a moment. “I… I don’t actually know. Vader’s definitely there, but Luke seemed to be referring to someone else too.” Something was tickling at the back of her mind. 

Something Vader had told her.

_ Perhaps you were not as strong as the Emperor thought. _

And then she realized how the Empire had happened. 

“Palpatine,” she breathed. “He must be a Force user, too. That’s why the Empire hunted down the Jedi. Why Vader is his second-in-command—hell, he may have had a hand in turning Vader to the Dark Side in the first place. And now he’s after Luke.” Something else occurred to her. “But now Luke is in a position where he could take out both of them.”

“Or become one of them,” Han added.

Leia shook her head. “No. Luke would never do that.”

“Are you sure? Luke’s… well, he’s a little messed up in places.”

“He would  _ never _ join them,” Leia said fiercely. “Not after Alderaan.”

“Okay,” he said after a time, “here’s what we do. We go along with the Rebellion for now, and  _ if _ we see an opening, I promise I’ll take you. But only if we have a reasonable chance. 

Leia sighed. “All right. Fine.”

After another long pause, he asked, “Are they coming after you too?

_ Vader is waiting for you too. _

“Yes. I think so.” 

Han held her tighter, but said nothing.


	8. Training

Luke woke to the sound of the door of his cell opening. To call it a “cell” might be a misnomer; it was closer to a sparse hospital room. The bed was stripped of sheets, there was no furniture except for a single table and chair (both lightweight so that they couldn’t do any significant damage if thrown), and the washroom had no fixtures. 

Unlike a hospital, however, every time the door opened someone new was trying to kill him. 

This time, it was a pair of stormtroopers. Luke rolled to the far side of the bed, dropping down below it to avoid the blaster bolts that were now burning holes in his mattress. 

The bed might be bolted to the floor, but the mattress wasn’t. 

Just breathe. 

Using the Force, Luke flung the mattress at the doorway, knocking the troopers flat on their backs. He propelled himself over both troopers and mattress with a wild jump and bolted down the hall. 

He might as well have stayed in his cell. Though they had dispensed with the air removal trick after his arrival on Coruscant, escape was still nearly impossible. The corridor led to a single destination: a control room full of at least a dozen Imperials waiting to stun him into unconsciousness. He would wake up in his cell and begin all over again. 

This time, however, he was ready to try something new. It had very nearly worked on Cloud City. 

He stood by the door to the control room and veiled himself from view with the Force. 

The stormtroopers, having regained their footing, were unable to see him. They opened the door to the control room. Luke followed, still hiding himself. 

Just breathe.

Quietly.

He remembered to hide his shadow this time. 

The Imperials moved from console to console, trading jokes and comments. There was a small uproar when the stormtroopers reported him missing, but by that point Luke was already at the door on the far side of the room. 

He put a hand on the mechanism and prepared to open the door. 

Before he could, however, it opened on its own. 

Darth Vader extended a massive booted foot at him and kicked Luke back into the control room. 

His captors stunned him before he even hit the ground. 

* * *

They had stopped feeding him about a day ago, if his disjointed measure of time was correct.

At first, he had thought it mere sadism, just another way to break him. Which it might have been, but Luke was beginning to suspect that there was another purpose to it. Vader had referred to his initial ordeal as a “lesson.” Some other kind of lesson was being taught here; he just had to figure out what it was. 

If it involved killing everyone between his cell and a kitchen, then he might as well give up now. 

There had to be another way…

The next time a pair of stormtroopers came to murder him, he was ready. The idea still made him a little queasy, but he reminded himself that at the very least, they would be unharmed. 

He sensed them outside his door and acted. 

_ There’s no one here to hurt behind this door.  _

_ Just a friend. He’s harmless. You like him.  _

_ Do what he tells you.  _

They opened the door. “Mind if we come in?” one of the troopers asked. 

“Sure,” Luke said, trying to look casual. “What are your names?”

“TR-2478 and KF-6899,” the same trooper replied. “Is there anything we can do for you while we’re here?”

“Oh, that would be great,” Luke said cheerfully. “I was wondering: what do you have in the way of food around here?”

The troopers looked at each other and the second one replied. “Basic rations. Food bars, mostly.”

“Sounds amazing. Could you bring me some?”

Keep control, he told himself. 

_ Help him out. He’s your friend.  _

“I think we could do that,” said TR-2478. “How many?”

“Just… a dozen or so?” Luke asked. “And hey,” he added with a smile. “Let’s keep this just between us, okay?”

“Be back in a bit,” said TR-2478. 

In a few minutes, both troopers returned with a few handfuls of food bars. 

He could make them forget all about it. And he did.

He was on his third food bar when Vader entered the cell. 

“Well done,” his father said. 

Luke looked up, surprised. “I passed your test, then?” he asked. 

“While not as quickly as the Emperor would have preferred, you have progressed, yes.”

“Because I mind-tricked a few stormtroopers into getting me breakfast?” Luke asked skeptically.

“You have embraced a power that initially repelled you. You showed yourself willing to do what it took to survive here, even if it meant using the Dark Side.” Vader gestured to Luke’s meal. “Your next lesson begins now. Everything you need to survive, you will have to fight for. Every scrap of food, every moment without pain, every second of freedom. This is your new normal now. From now on, you will get no more than you deserve. You will trust no one.”

Vader tossed an object onto the floor of the cell. When Luke picked it up, he saw that it was a blaster. There was no stun setting.

“And if I use this on you?” Luke asked. 

Vader remained impassive. Gesturing to Luke’s new mechanical hand, he said, “Remember, we do not need  _ all _ of you to survive.”

* * *

Gradually, it started to become normal.

The regular attempts on his life grew… if not tedious, then at least merely annoying. Some days he would mind trick stormtroopers into leaving, in some cases sending them on errands for him. Other days he would fling battle droids against one another with the Force, crushing their inner circuits. 

The mechanical hand was also starting to become normal. At first Luke was repulsed by it; a mere skeleton of steel, without any flesh on it. He sometimes surprised himself with how cold it was. 

A medical droid was dispatched to repair it after he shorted it out by using Force lighting during a particularly vicious melee with battle droids. It finished its repairs and then attempted to inject him with what Luke guessed was some kind of engine oil, based on the smell. He used the Force to rip its head off. 

Soon, he felt ready to try another escape. His cell door opened, he evaded his captors, and headed to the control room, veiling himself with the Force. 

It was full of droids. 

Luke had no idea how to evade nonorganic sensors. 

The droids opened fire. Panicking, Luke tapped into his fear. 

It would short out his hand again, but it would be worth it if he could escape. Assuming that Vader was not on the other side of the door. 

He flooded the room with Force lightning. Droids and consoles alike exploded in showers of sparks. The lightning writhed over his own skin, but did no damage. 

Keep going. 

See how much you can do. 

How powerful you can be. 

_ Get out of my head _ , Luke ordered, but he knew it was pointless. It was his own voice. 

Just breathe. 

Calm down. 

You can do anything if you’re calm enough.

He opened the door on the far side of the room. 

The next hallway was empty and dark. Trying to hold his blaster in his left hand (his right one now dangling useless from the end of his wrist), Luke made his way further into the darkness. 

Vader was near, he could tell. But he couldn’t tell where he was. It felt like navigating those passageways on Cloud City all over again. 

Just breathe. 

It was like Vader appeared out of nowhere. 

“It is time for your training to advance,” he said. 

Luke held up his blaster and fired. It was hard to aim but Vader, being as large as he was, wasn’t difficult to hit. However, he raised his hand and deflected the bolts with a gloved hand, as though he was batting away a swarm of troublesome insects.

“This is precisely why you require it.”

“What do you mean?” Luke asked.

“You can control the minds of others. You can channel the Force into pure pain and inflict it upon others. You are strong, but your reliance on these powers makes you predictable, which makes you weak. If you are to fulfill your destiny, you must learn more.”

“What is this destiny?” Luke asked.

“The Emperor has foreseen your potential. If you fully embraced the Dark Side of the Force, you could be unstoppable.”

“Against who?”

“Whoever stands in your way.”

The Empire. The Rebellion. 

“I won’t fight Leia,” he said, “and I won’t help you turn her.”

“Even if it was the only way to save her life?”

Luke had no answer to that.

“Your feelings betray you, Luke. Your love for her is your weakness. The Emperor will do everything in his power to exploit that weakness.”

Luke looked at him with suspicion. Was his father  _ warning _ him?

“After your hand is repaired, we will begin lightsaber training.”

A stun bolt hit Luke from behind. He collapsed.

* * *

This time, the medical droid only tried to stab him with a scalpel after repairing his hand.

He, as usual, had to fight off a pair of stormtroopers that had come to kill him, and once again had to fight his way through a group of battle droids in the control room. This time he threw one at the most densely-packed area of the room. A console exploded. He made it across the room mostly through sheer luck. 

There was still a part of Luke’s mind that was screaming in horror at how incredibly twisted all of this was. And at how calmly he was taking it. 

Now, in a large room full of storage crates, Luke looked down at a pair of lightsabers. He recognized one as the one Leia had owned. The one their father must have made as a Jedi.

“You will learn by surviving,” Vader said. “Choose your weapon.” 

Using the Force, Luke called one of the lightsabers into his hand. Vader’s saber. Leaving his father to use his old lightsaber. 

Vader hesitated before picking it up. He turned it over in his hands briefly, as though it was new to him. Then he ignited the blue blade and the melee began. 

“The Force will tell you where your enemy’s attacks will be,” Vader said as they fought. “If you can anticipate and avoid them, then there is less need to fight defensively. You are then freed to attack with impunity.”

Vader’s blade didn’t seem to be built for finesse, but for raw power. The pommel was heavy in his hands, but Luke found that he could channel his swings into stronger hits that Vader had trouble repelling. 

He could still feel the Dark Side, urging him to fight harder. That he could kill Vader right now if he could channel his anger into the battle. 

But at what cost? 

“You are holding yourself back,” Vader snapped. He had noticed Luke’s indecision, then. In Luke’s struggle just to stay alive, his mental barriers were harder and harder to keep up. “There is no place for mercy here. If you would only let go of your weakness, you would not have to struggle as you do.” He evaded another of Luke’s slashes. “Why do you insist on making things harder for yourself?”

“Because it’s supposed to be hard,” Luke said, dodging an overhead strike. 

“Fool. That will only get you killed. You could defeat me; why do you hesitate?” he demanded.

“Because I can’t kill my own father!” Luke cried. He jumped back and deactivated his lightsaber. 

Vader deactivated his own saber and threw it to the ground in disgust. “Then you have already failed.” He stormed out.

* * *

The following days were more of the same. Fight a new pair of attackers, get through the control room as best he could, and then listen to Vader lecture on the finer points of murder while trying not to get cut in half.

It had distantly occurred to Luke that he could have just stayed in his cell. He didn’t  _ have _ to do this. 

But what else could he do? At least this way he was learning skills that might help him escape. Or at least survive until Leia and the others could come for him. 

Leia. Vader seemed eager for her to arrive as well, given how often he mentioned it.

It was during lightsaber training that Luke noticed a strange thing: Vader soon seemed more interested in teaching Luke the ways of the Force in general than the ways of the Dark Side specifically. Granted, there was heavy emphasis on using his hatred and anger to power his attacks, but some of his other lessons were closer in subject matter to what Luke remembered learning from Yoda. 

Yoda had spoken of the Dark Side as though it was a one-way street: “once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.”

But why couldn’t the path go both ways? If a Jedi could be turned to the Dark Side, couldn’t a Sith be turned to the Light Side?

The current lesson had to do with keeping one’s attention from becoming too focused during a duel. In practice, this meant dueling Vader while the latter used the Force to throw crates at him. 

“Pay attention!” Vader admonished him. “At any moment, you could die.”

Luke dodged another slash of his lightsaber, but was clipped on the shoulder by a crate. “I don’t think you can bring yourself to kill me,” he said to Vader. “I think there’s still a part of you that cares.”

Vader gave a wordless noise of exertion and a crate connected squarely with Luke’s skull. Luke lay on the ground with what he hoped wasn’t a skull fracture. 

“Your faith in others is a weakness. I have told you again and again: trust no one.”

“Even you?” Luke said. He could see stars. 

He sat up. Vader made no move to attack him further. 

Luke suddenly realized that he had been  _ right. _ Vader had held back from killing him.

“I had a vision of you once. Of you before the armor,” Luke said, still slightly dazed from the wound to his head. 

“That person no longer exists,” Vader said. “He died in the fires of my creation.”

“Are you sure?”

Vader said nothing more. Luke finally stumbled to his feet and went back to his cell.

* * *

He also noticed something else as time went on.

Vader was getting tired. Dueling Luke seemed to fatigue him faster and faster. At the end of lessons, Luke could hear the mechanical gasp of his breathing apparatus working desperately to circulate air into his lungs. Granted, he still could have killed Luke at any point if he had wanted to. But Luke noticed the change in his movements. 

Luke’s training also seemed to be accelerating. As though Vader was up against a deadline. 

At first, Luke thought it was the Emperor’s demands that were speeding things up. But something had been nudging Luke in the back of his mind; an idea that wouldn’t stop until he had a chance to think it through. 

The deadline was something else. 

His father was dying. And wanted Luke ready to replace him before he did. 

Wait. No. Vader obviously had no love for the Emperor, nor had he made any move to bring Luke to him. In fact, it seemed as though he was putting that event off for as long as possible, in spite of the frantic pace of Luke’s training. 

It hit him with the force of that crate Vader had thrown at him. 

Vader was playing a longer game, Luke realized. All of this training wasn’t so that Luke could serve him, or even serve the Emperor. It was so Luke could  _ overthrow _ the Emperor and rule in his place. The same with Leia, his obsession with catching her and turning her to the Dark Side as well: to set her up as the Vader to Luke’s Emperor. 

It was in a horrible, twisted kind of way, but their father loved his children. And wanted to give them the galaxy.


	9. Grounded

“You were demoted?” Leia asked, astonished. 

“I knew it was a risk going in,” Wedge said, trying to sound cheerful. Seeing Leia still dumbfounded, he elaborated. “A third of a squadron, going AWOL from the Rebel Fleet on an unapproved mission? We’re lucky they didn’t ground the whole lot of us.” He sighed. “At least I was the only one who was punished, and the squadron is still in good shape; Hobbie’s a good pilot and he’ll make a good leader too.”

“I’m sorry,” Leia said. 

“Don’t be,” he said. “I only wish we could have been more useful. All we really ended up doing was recon over Jabba’s palace. Still… worth it.” He shrugged.

Leia looked downcast. “And I thanked you all by flying off on some other errand.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Wedge said. “We’ve made plans for how you can make it up to us. Beginning with covering all our patrol assignments for the next two weeks.”

“Ugh.”

“And Janson’s said something about needing some of his recent kills painted on his fighter…”

“Please tell me he’s an awful shot,” Leia groaned. 

“Holds the squad record ever since taking out that AT-AT on Hoth.”

“I’m not sure I want to come back, now,” she said, mock-petulantly. 

“Tough, kid,” Wedge said, patting her arm. “You’re in Red Squadron, and we’re bad at letting go.”

* * *

At least her patrol duties weren’t consecutive, she grumbled to herself. But it was nearly as bad: between each assignment, she had only enough time to grab a quick meal and get a few hours of shut-eye before having to wake up and do it all over again.

Patrol missions were mind-numbing in the worst way. Most of the scanning was done via her astromech droid, which more often than not left her mind free to wander. Which meant that she had plenty of time to worry about Luke. 

She hadn’t been able to contact him since her time in the bacta tank after Malastare. He wasn’t dead; she felt like she would know if he was dead. But something was actively blocking their connection through the Force; a connection she didn’t even entirely understand. 

Leia also had plenty of time to worry about Han. As she feared, it was like Hoth all over again: he had stayed. This time, however, she couldn’t bring herself to tell him to leave. With Luke gone, she needed Han more than ever.

She had overheard, on her way to see Han on day, a particularly nasty argument between him and Chewbacca. 

“Listen pal, I have the right to make my own choices about this—”

Chewie was talking so quickly in Shyriiwook that Leia had trouble following his words; something about Han not honoring their… plan? Agreement? 

“Things change! And if you’re unhappy with it, you’re always free to go, it’s not like you’re—”

Chewie appeared to take that particular statement very badly, judging by the amount of Wookiee profanity Leia picked out of his reply. 

“That’s not what I said!” Han protested.

“It was!” Chewie shot back. 

“Stop acting like this is something I’m doing  _ to _ you! Believe it or not, not everything I do is—”

Chewie growled something about “stupid situations.” 

“Oh, you’re one to talk!”

Chewbacca scoffed and then gave a long tirade containing what Leia assumed were counter-examples. 

“That one wasn’t my fault!” Han interrupted at one point. This didn’t stop Chewie, who continued on with his rapid list. Leia caught her name at least once, at which point Han interrupted again: “Stop acting like this is about her!”

“Then what is it about?” Chewie asked. 

“It’s about doing what’s right—”

“And then she leaves—”

“That’s none of your business!” Han shouted. Leia heard Chewie slam something on the deck and storm off onto the  _ Falcon.  _

Leia hurried off before Han could see that she was there. 

Ever since then, he seemed to be all over the place on the Alliance command ship, during the scant minutes that Leia had between sleep, meals, and patrols. She more often than not saw him in the company of General Madine or Mon Mothma, the latter of which Leia found to be an odd pairing. Unfortunately, due to Leia’s schedule, she never got a chance to ask him what was going on.

Then, one day, Han vanished, leaving Chewie and the  _ Falcon  _ behind. 

And no one would tell her why.

Mon Mothma, in particular, was extremely unhelpful and extraordinarily talented at saying something without saying anything at all. However, even her composure had limits, and Leia’s continued pestering finally broke through it. 

“Sit,” she told Leia sternly. Leia obeyed, sitting in the hard-backed chair in the room that Mon Mothma used as her office and the base for Alliance intelligence. 

“Even though Captain Solo came to the Alliance through your… affiliation… that does not make you automatically privy to all of his assigned activities.”

“Aren’t we on the same side?” Leia asked. 

“Are we?” Mon Mothma asked. “Since joining the fleet you have gone absent without leave, you have disobeyed orders, and you have shown yourself to be negligent in your duties to the detriment of your squadmates and other allies. Tell me again why you should be trusted with anything?”

Leia glowered, but bit back a retort. 

“However,” Mon Mothma continued, “that is not the primary reason why we have kept you away from sensitive information such as Captain Solo’s activities. The primary reason is because of your connection with Luke Organa.”

“What are you talking about?” Leia asked.

“Your connection through the Force. As you are aware, we cannot be sure that Organa has not been in some way compromised while in Imperial custody. We also cannot be sure about how much control you would have over the information that would pass between the two of you. In short, we need to keep you in the dark because we need to keep the Imperials in the dark.”

“Do you really trust Luke that little?” Leia asked, appalled. 

“I would like nothing more than to believe the best of His Highness,” Mon Mothma said, sadly, “but the truth is that we cannot risk the alternative. Too much is relying on our activities remaining confidential; too many of our agents have died already.”

Leia remembered the Bothans on Malastare. She reluctantly nodded. 

An idea occurred to her. “I haven’t been able to make contact with him in awhile,” she said. “If I was able to, though, I might be able to get some information out of him.”

Mon Mothma gave the faintest hint of a smile. “That would be quite valuable.”

“What should I ask?”

“If he is on Coruscant, he may be able to glean information on the Emperor’s whereabouts. That could be quite useful at this moment. But really, any information about Imperial activities would be helpful.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Leia said. “And, uh, sorry for being such a pain.”

“You need to learn to play the long game, Leia,” Mon Mothma said. “Think more than two steps ahead of you, and you’ll be able to stay grounded.” She picked up a datapad. “This, incidentally, is for you.”

Leia took the pad. The pad contained a large untitled text file and a smaller one marked “Message”. 

Back in the barracks, she opened the “Message” file:

> _ Leia, _
> 
> _ I came across this while doing research and thought you would find it to be useful.  _
> 
> _ Find Luke and bring him home. _
> 
> _ ~ Winter _

Wedge paused in the doorway of the barracks as Leia opened the second file. She gave a gasp. 

“What is it?” he asked. 

“Instructions on building a lightsaber,” Leia said, delighted.

* * *

Darth Vader appeared at the door of his cell one morning—or at least what Luke had come to assume was morning. It could have been the middle of the night for all he knew.

By reflex, his blaster was drawn and pointing at his father before he even realized what he was doing. 

Vader seemed to nod approvingly, which gave Luke a shudder as he forced himself to put the blaster back down. Though this approval probably kept him alive, it wasn’t something Luke especially wanted. 

“My master has asked to see you,” Vader said. “You will be taken to his throne room momentarily. He will want to check on the progression of your training.” Using the Force, he pulled the blaster out of Luke’s hand. 

Yet one more person who could order Luke to be killed on a whim. He would have to be very careful.

Careful in more ways than one. If the Emperor could read minds, Luke would have to conceal what he had guessed about Vader, where the last surviving Jedi Master was, and everything he knew about the Alliance. 

As stormtroopers came to put his hands in binders and march him away, Vader gave him some parting advice: “Do not underestimate the powers of the Emperor. He is not as… forgiving as I am.”

Luke fought off the urge to free his hands and disarm the stormtroopers who were marching on either side of him. Some part of it was due to basic fear of being helpless, but he also noticed himself feeling indignant.

_ Go on, _ murmured a voice in his head,  _ show them who has the real power here. _

The scary thing was that he knew that he could if he wanted to.

This place had brought out some disturbing impulses in him.

The Emperor awaited him not in his throne room as before, but at one end of a long hall full of display cases. The dim lighting gave his ruined face an even more ghostly pallor than usual. 

At points between some of the display cases, red-robed members of the Emperor’s personal guard stood silent and still as statues. 

The Emperor dismissed the stormtroopers with a gesture and then beckoned to Luke. “Walk with me, my young apprentice.” The binders fell from Luke’s hands. 

Something was tickling at the borders of Luke’s mind. As he learned so many years ago, he made his thoughts like water: serene on the surface, but ready to become a barrier at any moment. But the mental attack he was expecting never came. He followed the Emperor down the hall. 

“Your father tells me that you have made great progress in your training,” Palpatine said. 

“I wouldn’t be able to comment on that,” Luke said. 

“I can sense how your presence in the Force has changed. You have been honed like a knife, ready to strike at a moment’s notice. But still… you have held back from fully embracing the Dark Side.” He gave a sigh. “A pity. But a fleeting one. You will turn soon enough.”

“No,” Luke said. 

“Your feelings betray you, my apprentice. I can sense the anger flowing inside of you, hot and red as blood. You look at me, you look at my Empire, and you remember your lost homeworld. You remember all of the wrongs we have done to you, and it  _ burns. _ ”

“Then why would you possibly think that I would join you?” Luke snapped at him.

“Because, my young apprentice… soon you will have nowhere else to go.”

“What are you talking about?” Luke asked as they stepped out onto a balcony overlooking Monument Square.

“Soon your Rebel friends will be defeated. But even if some ember of them survives, you would be unwelcome among them. They would never trust you again after your time here. And you would chafe under their pitiful chains, their weaknesses pulling at you. You would be  _ powerless _ . But here… you can taste what true power is. The power to stop those who oppose you, to set things to rights, to reshape the galaxy as you see fit, to serve a truly higher purpose.”

“To serve  _ you _ , you mean.” But something of what Palpatine said seemed to make sense. If the Empire could be changed, if it could use its power for good… would it be worth it?

Besides, Palpatine was so old… surely he would only live another handful of years. And then things would change. If Luke were in a position to act, he could make sure that they changed for the better. 

The tickling at the edges of his mind increased. They stood in silence for a time. 

“I sense the conflict in you, young Skywalker. We are not so very different, you and I. We were both raised in privilege. We both aspired to something even greater. And we both, I assure you, wish for peace and order to be restored in the galaxy. This is something your father will never understand. He was born into slavery and then kidnapped by the Jedi… he never wanted anything of value other than his own freedom. But you… you know what you deserve. What you are entitled to. Power. Dominion over others. You were raised to  _ rule _ , my young apprentice, and by my side you shall have that power.”

It sounded so reasonable. 

He could do exactly as he pleased. He knew how the galaxy should be, how it  _ ought _ to be, and if given the chance, he could show everyone how to do it properly. How to get it right. 

For one horrible moment, Luke was tempted to give in. 

Then he realized what that tickling in his mind was. 

Palpatine was mind-tricking him. Making everything he said sound pleasant, logical, agreeable. No wonder he had been able to establish an empire. 

“You’re wrong about me,” Luke said. “You don’t know a thing about me, in fact. And if you want to turn me to your side, you’re going to have to try a lot harder than that.”

“So be it, my young apprentice,” Palpatine said with a slight sneer. “But perhaps you will think differently when your sister arrives.”

Luke couldn’t help it; he flinched. 

Palpatine noticed. “Yes… you see, I know you better than you think.” He turned away from the view of the city and addressed a pair of guards nearby. “Take him to a new set of chambers. Guard him constantly. And tell Vader to continue his training here, under my supervision.”

As the guards took Luke by the upper arms, the Emperor addressed him. “Prove to me that you are worth the effort we are expending on you.”

* * *

“Why is it green?” Han asked.

“No idea,” Leia said, marvelling at the lightsaber.  _ Her _ lightsaber. It glowed emerald in the dim light of one the  _ Falcon _ ’s storage bays, which Leia had been using as a makeshift workshop while she constructed the saber. Han had only returned from his clandestine activities the previous evening. 

“I wonder why they never thought to manufacture these things?” Han said. “They’re pretty powerful melee weapons.”

“Assuming you don’t cut off your arm in the process,” Leia said, still entranced by the weapon. 

“I’ve held riskier weapons,” Han said. 

“It’s because it’s impossible without the Force,” Leia said, answering his previous question. “According to the notes Winter sent me, a lightsaber, on a theoretical level, shouldn’t even work. The currents are too powerful to be contained once activated, the crystal should theoretically shatter under the pressure, and the whole thing would burn itself out within a few minutes, like an engine without a heat sink. But by using the Force… it somehow makes the impossible possible. The separate pieces are brought together and bound in such a way that it actually works.” She looked at Han. “Anyone can use a lightsaber, but only a Force user can  _ make _ one.”

She gave it a flourish. “This was the last piece. Now all I need is an opportunity to duel Vader again, win, and get Luke out of there.” 

Her comm and Han’s comm beeped almost simultaneously. 

“Mon Mothma is looking for you. Please report to her office at once,” said a voice she didn’t recognize but sounded Mon Calamari. 

“Acknowledged,” she said, and clicked off the comm. Han had just clicked his off as well. 

“Have to go see General Madine,” he said. “You?”

“Mon Mothma. I’ve probably screwed something up again,” Leia said with a grimace. 

Han smiled. “You know, she actually likes you, right?”

“She thinks I’m about two seconds away from defecting.”

“You might be surprised, is all I’m saying.”

She arrived at Mon Mothma’s office to find her surprisingly agitated. 

“We have a problem,” she said to Leia. “Have you been able to contact Organa yet?”

“Not yet,” Leia said. “Why?”

Mon Mothma brought up her display and activated it. “This just aired on the holonets.”

Leia saw the almost-familiar buildings of Monument Square on Coruscant. Nearly every major announcement from the Empire was broadcast from there. Two figures stood on the balcony: one clad in a dark hooded cape and the other wearing simple black clothes.

The Emperor’s strangely-accented voice rang out over the square. “It is a joyous day for the Empire: one of our own has returned to us. Luke Organa, scion of one of the greatest houses of our dear departed Alderaan, has forsaken his misguided Rebellion and come back to the service of the Empire.”

The camera cut from the cheering crowds in the square to a close-up of Luke, clad in black, standing at the Emperor’s side. 

“And to the remaining members of the Rebellion,” the Emperor continued, “we beseech you: join him. We are willing to forgive. Peace can reign in the galaxy once more.”

Leia had seen enough. “This is poodoo,” she said. “We don’t even know if that’s him. The Empire doctors footage all the time.”

“We know,” Mon Mothma said. “The odds of it being genuine are low, but it will still be a massive hit to morale for the time being. And the timing could not be worse,” she said in irritation. “Try and contact him. Quickly.”

“I’m doing the best I can, but there’s something blocking us—”

“Try harder. I dislike being dependent on this, but we need more information and we need it soon. Dismissed.”

“Luke hasn’t defected,” Leia said. “I know it.”

Mon Mothma looked at her sadly. “Then prove it.”


	10. Interlude: Son

Vader was running out of time. 

It was no longer enough to ensure that Luke turned to the Dark Side (for he was so close); Vader had to ensure that his son was not forged into another tool for the Emperor to use. He had to turn to the Dark Side the  _ right way _ . 

It enraged him, how easily the Emperor was able to interfere in Vader’s careful plans. Luke was now no longer under Vader’s direct control. And worse, the Emperor was treating Luke with… not kindness, but some measure of relief from his earlier trials. Luke no longer had to fight for his every breath. Without Vader’s constant challenges, his son would grow complacent, he was sure of it. 

Furthermore, there was the matter of Leia. She would arrive any day now; the Emperor had foreseen it. And then Vader would have to make sure that the Emperor’s plans for  _ her _ would not come to pass either. 

If only his children would understand. If only he could make them understand what the stakes were. The Empire was held in place by a single thread: that of a decaying old man. Unless there was someone to replace the Emperor, cutting the thread would plunge the galaxy into chaos. 

He had once sworn to protect the galaxy.

Old habits die hard, he supposed. 

Enough. There was too little time left to be distracted by old memories, even though lately every minute with Luke threatened to pull apart all of his careful subconscious constructions. The armor covering his body was nothing compared with the armor around his mind. 

It had started as an itch but now had become maddening. All it would take was a word pronounced in a certain way, or a look of triumph after a sparring match, and he could see his own eyes taunting him from behind his son’s eyes. 

No, not his own eyes. Anakin’s eyes. 

Anakin was gone. 

Wasn’t he?

His body was failing him. But worse than that, he was coming undone. 

Vader was running out of time. 


	11. Entangled

Luke didn’t want to be special. Not anymore.

And yet, at this very moment, he was probably the most unique prisoner in the Empire. After weeks of nearly being murdered on an almost constant basis, he was now practically coddled by comparison. 

It was like a horrible parody of being back on Alderaan. 

He could have anything he asked for. Everyone was so subservient that it actually took him some time to realize that he wasn’t mind-tricking them into obeying. When not in training, he had the run of the Imperial Palace—the useless parts of it, anyway—as long as he was shadowed by the Emperor’s guards. For a few minutes, he could fool himself into thinking that it was freedom. 

He still twitched whenever someone came into the room, though. Slept lightly. Looked for anything that could be used as a makeshift weapon. Kept at least one eye on the exits of a room at all times. 

Vader’s training had dug its hooks in deep. Maybe this was exactly the scenario he had been preparing Luke for all this time?

His window of opportunity for trying to reach Vader was running out. Palpatine demanded that all of their subsequent training sessions take place under his tutelage, which now typically meant having to listen to the Emperor drone on about the weakness of others and the power of the Dark Side, while Vader stood nearby and tried to probe his mind. Worse, the Emperor expected Luke to actually absorb the information, with an ironic punishment for wrong answers: electrocution by Force lightning. 

It was agony, made worse by the knowledge that if he just  _ let go _ he could stop it. If he just embraced the Dark Side, he could revenge every hurt inflicted upon him and more. 

But he held on. 

Luke returned to his room every time exhausted in both body and mind. 

At least they had found a way to alter his cybernetic hand so that it wouldn’t short out all the time.

He didn’t want this temptation. He didn’t want this attention. He didn’t want this power he was born with. Everyone, from Yoda to the Emperor, seemed to have some vested interest in every single decision that Luke made and he was  _ sick _ of it. 

He just wanted to be left alone.

He had lost track of how many days it had been, but one day, upon his arrival in the Emperor’s throne room, something was different. In addition to Vader and Palpatine, several Imperial admirals and Moffs were in attendance. The Emperor was finishing saying something to them all when Luke arrived. 

“...convey as much to your subordinates. You will depart immediately.” The officials bowed and exited, many of them giving Luke deferential looks as they left. 

The Imperial guards escorted Luke to where Palpatine and Vader waited for him. 

“Today, my young apprentice, you shall have a new task,” Palpatine said with an almost genial smile. “I am sending Lord Vader to supervise the completion of our newest battle station prior to my arrival, and you will accompany him. It is time for you to see in person why the Rebellion will never succeed.”

“I doubt it,” Luke muttered. 

“Sounding like a spoiled child doesn’t suit you, my apprentice,” the Emperor said disapprovingly. “Think of it as a preview of what is to come, once you finally join our ranks. But please,” and here his voice took on a mocking tone, “try not to destroy my bridge crew this time.”

Vader escorted him out. It was a sign of how exhausted Luke had become that he didn’t realize what the Emperor was referring to until they were halfway to the shuttle bay. 

There was a second Death Star. 

It was happening again. 

He thought he was beyond fear now. Beyond panic. And yet, he began to breathe rapidly as they walked, until his vision began to go dark around the edges. 

It was happening all over again. More worlds destroyed. Billions more murdered. More blood on the Empire’s hands and, once again, Luke was powerless to do anything to stop it. 

He stumbled. Vader turned around to face him. 

Luke tried to get his breathing under control, to stand up straight, to block off his mind.

Just breathe. 

It was happening again. 

Vader stepped towards him, reaching out an arm to grab him. Luke braced himself for an attack. 

Just breathe. 

He dodged Vader’s outstretched arm and tried to run, but was pinned in place by the Force. It was like his entire body had frozen, forcing him upright. 

Vader drew and ignited his lightsaber and rotated Luke around to face him. The tip of the red blade was now mere centimeters from his neck. 

“You should know by now,” Vader said, holding perfectly still, “that the only way you will gain your freedom is by the power of the Dark Side… which you still refuse. There will therefore be no escape. We will board the shuttle to my Star Destroyer. We will oversee the completion of the Death Star at Endor before the Emperor arrives in a week’s time. We will witness the fall of the Rebellion. And  _ you… _ ”

Vader moved the lightsaber slightly so that it just barely grazed the skin on Luke’s neck. Luke clenched his teeth to stifle a scream.

“...you will join us, or you will die.”

* * *

Looking for Luke through the Force was like wandering through a maze: Leia knew he was out there, but had no idea which path would take her in the right direction.

Just breathe. 

Her frustration subsided, and as though a curtain was opened, she could tell where he was. He had been hiding himself from the Force; she sensed pain, exhaustion, and trauma, bound around him like armor. 

_ Luke, _ she called gently

She felt his rush of relief.  _ Leia.  _ If she had been there in person, he would have probably leapt at her for a hug. 

_ Where are you?  _ she asked.

_ On a ship. We just exited hyperspace near Endor.  _

_ A system, or a planet? _

_ No time. Listen, it’s happening again.  _ She felt a  cold wave of fear sweep over her.  _ The Death Star: that’s the new superweapon they’re working on. A new Death Star. It’s here, protected by a shield on the surface. You have to stop it.  _

_ I’ll tell the others, _ she promised _.  _

_ The Emperor will be here in a week’s time. Strike then and you can get him.  _

_ What about Vader? _

She felt a blur of emotions from him that she couldn’t quite unravel.  _ He told me the whole plan.  _

It was as though she could hear him speaking two things at once, because underneath that she could sense him saying something else:  _ I can save him. There is still good in him. I can save him. _

_ Luke… that’s not possible. _

_ I don’t understand what’s happening. But I have to try.  _

_ No, you don’t, _ she insisted. 

_ Just warn the others, _ he said. 

And underneath that, repeating incessantly:

_ It’s happening again. It’s happening again. It’s happening again. _

* * *

“That settles it,” Mon Mothma said. “The time for our attack has come.”

“I’m not entirely convinced that it isn’t a trap of some kind,” Commander Willard said. 

“It is the best shot that we have of stopping the Emperor,” she replied. 

Leia looked at them both with confusion. “You both seem awfully composed about it being another  _ Death Star _ ,” she said, enunciating the last two words carefully. 

Mon Mothma sighed. “It is, unfortunately, a project that we have been aware of ever since your return from Malastare. We have kept it under wraps until a more concrete plan could be created.” She looked at Commander Willard. “Is General Madine prepared to put things in motion?”

“Very nearly. Solo’s strike team is assembled, but he still needs a command crew for the shuttle.”

Mon Mothma gestured at Leia. “Send her along.”

“What?” Leia asked. 

Willard nodded. “Dismissed.”

Outside of Willard’s office, Leia turned to Mon Mothma. “What’s going on?”

Mon Mothma began walking towards her office, leaving Leia no choice but to walk beside her. “Thanks to the work of several of our agents, we have acquired a small Imperial shuttle and clearance codes to insert a strike team inside of an Imperial facility.”

Leia’s hopes rose. “So I’ll be part of the team that infiltrates the Death Star?”

The other woman shook her head. “Given what you have told us about the shield generator, I expect that the strike team would be most useful on the surface of Endor. Which is precisely the reason why I recommended you for the shuttle crew.”

“What do you mean?”

“Because you and I both know that the second you got into an X-wing, you would head straight for the Death Star to rescue Luke Organa.”

“But we’re rescuing him... aren’t we?” Leia asked. 

Mon Mothma didn’t answer. Leia’s stomach dropped. “And if I refuse?” she asked faintly.

Mon Mothma’s face softened a little. “This is a difficult situation, and one I would not wish to put you through if that were within my power. But the choices we make today may end the war once and for all.” She gave an exhale of frustration. “I do not intend this as a punishment. Captain Solo specifically requested you, and your skills would be invaluable in this mission if what I have heard about your activities on Tatooine is accurate.”

“Han’s leading the mission?” Leia asked. 

“He played a critical role in the acquisition of the shuttle, and his familiarity with Imperial protocol has proven useful. Besides,” she said with a wry smile, “he volunteered.” Mon Mothma entered her office and shut the door on Leia before she could say anything more. 

Leia wanted to storm out. But she had nowhere else to go. 

Luke was on a Star Destroyer near Endor, not the Death Star itself, she reminded herself. He might be okay in the end. 

But the second she saw an opportunity, she was going to make Han keep his promise:  _ We go along with the Rebellion for now, and if we see an opening, I promise I’ll take you.  _

Whether the Rebellion liked it or not, she was going to get her brother back.

* * *

For the first time since exiting hyperspace, Luke was alone with his father. 

The  _ Executor _ , as Vader’s personal flagship, contained a meditation chamber, where Vader was seated on a chair as mechanical as he himself was. Aside from what looked like medical equipment, the room was dark and bare. 

Luke was sitting on the floor, his back against the wall. 

“The Emperor is growing impatient with your progress,” Vader said. “As am I.”

“I noticed,” Luke said dryly, rubbing the burn on his neck. His head had been spinning ever since he spoke to Leia. Whatever was going to happen had been set in motion and could no longer be stopped. 

“Your resistance to the Dark Side has been…” Vader actually seemed to be searching for the right word.

“Exasperating?” Luke supplied.

“Impressive,” Vader said. “As well as perplexing. Your insistence on limiting yourself is pointless. And for what purpose? You merely delay the inevitable.”

Something rose in the back of Luke’s throat like bile. He was surprised to discover that it was laughter. 

“Do you… do you honestly believe that I’m doing this on  _ purpose _ ?” Luke said, almost gasping. He felt himself skirting the borders of hysteria, and found that he no longer cared. “I’ve been beaten and exhausted and tormented constantly by you, your master, and literally every person I’ve encountered for  _ weeks— _ do you honestly think that I wouldn’t try and end this nightmare if I could?” He had never before heard this horrible bleak sound that seemed to be spilling out of him in all directions. 

“Do you think I  _ don’t _ want to be so powerful that no one could ever hurt me again? That there’s a chance out there that I could think about Alderaan and just not  _ care _ anymore? To think about all of the things I’ve done to other people and be  _ fine _ with it? To not have to worry about anyone else in this entire galaxy except for  _ me _ and what  _ I  _ want?” He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes until he saw stars. “Trust me, the thing I want  _ most _ right now would be to just let go of all of this pain and horror. You want me to turn to the Dark Side? Hand over the black cape and sign me up.” 

His laughter overwhelmed him for a moment until he was finally able to cry out, “But, for some  _ inexplicable _ reason… I can’t. Something inside of me, something I have no control over, something I can’t exhaust or terrify or drown out… I just  _ can’t _ . I can’t do it!” He held his hands over his mouth for a moment, gasping. “This isn’t heroics! This is me in an impossible situation, not being able to do what you want. And I know—” There were, somehow, tears on his face. “I know that you can’t bring yourself to kill me. That you’re in the same impossible place I’m in. That, for all of your rage and hate, there’s some part of you that won’t stop  _ fighting back _ against the Dark Side.”

“So…” he held up his hands helplessly, “we both sit here and suffer... together.” He could no longer tell if he was laughing or crying.

“Perhaps…” his father said after a long silence. “Perhaps the Emperor was wrong about your destiny. Perhaps there is another way.” He seemed to be about to say something else, but then shook his head slowly. “But it is too late for me, my son.”

* * *

“I’ll say this for the Rebellion,” Leia said wryly as they worked their way through Endor’s dense woodlands, “there’s certainly no shortage of interesting places to be shot at in.”

Han turned and smirked at her, and then returned to his surveillance of the area. In their current position, it was nearly impossible to move around on foot without tripping over something; the forest floor was covered in shrubbery, logs, roots, and loose gravel. 

Without looking back at her, he murmured, “This looks like where I used to go camping on Corellia… the trees here are bigger, though.”

The strike team had fanned out through the woods after quickly taking out the Imperials on the landing pad. They were about a five kilometer hike from the shield generator, and though the likelihood of encountering an Imperial patrol was slim, it also wasn’t impossible. 

Han received a click on his comm: “They caught two stormtroopers trying to sneak off on speeder bikes,” he relayed. “They stopped them, but there are probably at least one other pair on patrol right now.” He sighed. “Well, at least we answered  _ that _ question.”

Leia looked through the dense foliage, which limited her vision to only a few dozen meters. “I can’t sense anyone coming,” she said, “though between our strike team and all the local fauna, they would probably be drowned out at this point.” She was also somewhat distracted. Passing the Death Star on their way down to the moon’s surface had been agony: she knew that Luke was nearby, possibly even on the station itself, but knew that reaching out to him would have also made her visible to Vader through the Force and endanger the mission. She had locked herself down as best she could, but had to fight the urge to grab the shuttle controls from Han the entire time.

A metallic scrape echoed through the woods. “Speeder bikes?” Han theorized, then thought better of it. “Too loud for speeder bikes…” He signaled to some of the strike team to head in that direction. 

“I’ll go too,” Leia volunteered. She had a bad feeling about this…

Han gave her a reluctant nod. She followed the members of the strike team into a slightly less dense part of the woods. It made it easier to move, certainly, but also easier to see. On the other hand, unlike the Imperial stormtroopers, the Rebels were actually wearing camouflage. 

Which meant that it made the two stormtroopers on speeder bikes extremely easy to spot from a distance. 

“I’ll try and sneak around them in case they try and make a run for it,” she said. “You line up your shots.”

The Alliance snipers managed to get one of the stormtroopers, but missed the second one. Leia, being already fairly close to them at this point, quickly jumped onto the remaining speeder bike and pursued the fleeing stormtrooper. 

The forest seemed to fly by her in a blur of green and brown. It wasn’t Beggar’s Canyon, that was for sure. There were still high obstacles to avoid, but every move had to be made almost a nanosecond before you hit something. There was no room to look ahead or anticipate. 

She actually wasn’t sure how the stormtrooper was managing it… she supposed there must have been some routes pre-established for the patrols. If she hadn’t had the Force on her side, though, she would have been a smear on the nearest tree. 

Which gave Leia an idea.

Trees tended to get thinner near the top. They were easier to fly through; hitting a smaller branch wasn’t nearly as catastrophic as it would have been lower down where the larger branches were. 

She urged her speeder bike up as high as the repulsors would go until she broke through the tree canopy entirely. Leaves and twigs scraped at her face on the way, but the bike was fine. She could still faintly hear the stormtrooper down below. 

Without obstacles in her way, she went much faster. She had caught up to the stormtrooper, and even gotten a little ahead of him. 

From this height, this might not have been the best idea, she realized. Too late now. She unclipped her lightsaber from her belt and jumped. 

It was even more uncomfortable on the way down, but her timing was perfect. Leia only had to slice one tree branch out of the way on her way down, and then she slammed onto the shoulders of the stormtrooper. Much to her surprise (and his, probably), the stormtrooper let go of the bike’s handles and both he and Leia tumbled to the ground. 

The speeder bike went only a few more meters before it collided with a tree and burst into flames. 

The trooper’s armor absorbed most of the impact from the fall, but even a petite Jedi could cause some serious damage when dropped from a significant enough height; the stormtrooper was out cold once they landed.

Leia climbed to her feet and contacted Han over the comms. “Another patrol down,” she said. 

“Good,” Han said. “Now head back.”

As she tucked her comm back into her pocket, Leia heard the same metallic scraping sound as before. Only this time it was much, much closer. 

It pushed its way through a grove of trees: an Imperial scout walker. 

What was one of those doing here, patrolling a forest? It could barely navigate through the trees and its footing, while more secure than its cousins, the AT-ATs, was still shaky on the uneven ground. Why would the Empire bother putting one on the surface when a squad of stormtroopers could easily handle most indigenous threats?

Unless they were expecting the Rebels to show up. 

Before she could get her comm back out, the ground in front of her exploded as the scout walker opened fire.


	12. Confrontation

As Darth Vader escorted him into the Emperor’s throne room on the Death Star, the thought came to Luke with a sudden clarity: of the three people in the room right now, at least one of them would not be walking out of there alive. 

Behind the Emperor and his throne was a large window looking out over the moon of Endor. For Luke, trapped as he had been inside ships and behind walls for these last few weeks, this was his first glimpse of something truly  _ living. _

Palpatine noticed. “After all this time, you are still… sentimental.” The way he pronounced the final word made it clear that it was not a compliment. “Enjoy the view while you can; once the Death Star’s internal energy shield is complete it will be the first thing to be destroyed.”

Luke comforted himself with the knowledge that the Death Star was still under construction and did not pose a threat yet. Somewhere on that moon, Leia and the others were working to deactivate the shield generator. Or at least he hoped so. 

“I had you brought here,” Palpatine continued, “so that you could witness first-hand the power of my Empire. Because, my young apprentice… this is your last chance.”

“What do you mean?” Luke asked, trying to keep his face neutral.

“I mean that you have tried my patience long enough. If you insist on remaining weak and useless, then there is no need to continue our work. As I have instructed Darth Vader to convey to you: you will join the Dark Side, or you will die.”

Luke glanced at Vader briefly. Palpatine gave a hideous smile. “Ah yes… you still believe that your father can be saved. That he is not firmly under my control. Allow me to disabuse you of that notion.” He turned to Vader. “Cut his other hand off.”

Before Vader could draw his lightsaber, the space outside the window suddenly filled with ships of every shape and size, from a squadron of agile A-wings to the large Mon Calamari cruisers. 

The Alliance had arrived. 

“I think my allegiance is a moot point, Your Highness,” Luke said, smiling. “Because your reign ends today no matter what.”

The Emperor didn’t even spare a glance for the new arrivals. Instead, he began to laugh. “Your Rebel friends… do you think they have come to rescue you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Luke said. 

“That is more true than you know,” the Emperor said. “Because the Rebellion will be destroyed before they ever get a chance to do so.” He gave Vader a nod. “Well done, my servant. The Rebels have been lured here as planned.” He turned back to Luke. “And now, you may watch as we unveil the true power of this fully armed and  _ operational  _ battle station.” Palpatine pressed a button on the arm of his chair. “Fire at will, commander!” he ordered. A green flash lit up the field of Alliance ships and a Mon Calamari cruiser was destroyed by a blast from the Death Star’s main beam.

“No!” Luke cried. He attempted to lunge at the Emperor, but Vader intercepted him and tossed Luke bodily across the room with the Force. 

As he climbed back to his feet, he heard the Emperor laughing again. “Poor young fool. You must know by now that your father can never be turned. He gave you that information under my orders. He trained you in the ways of the Dark Side under my orders. And now, he will kill you under my orders.”

Vader began walking towards Luke, slowly but steadily. 

Another green light flashed outside. Another ship exploded.

“You can’t do this,” Luke said to his father, quietly. “I know you can’t bring yourself to do it. You couldn’t do it before and you won’t do it now.”

“I had warned you, my son,” Vader said, igniting his lightsaber. “Trust no one.”

Luke rolled out of the way just in time to avoid a slash that would have cut him in half. 

Luke’s mind raced as he dodged again. He knew he was right; he  _ knew _ that Vader couldn’t kill him. He also knew that Vader wanted the Emperor dead and that killing Luke was not the way to do it. He needed Luke in order to fulfill that plan. Surely now was the ideal time to join forces and turn against the Emperor; so why was he attacking  _ Luke? _

Assuming the Death Star didn’t obliterate the entire fleet (and with that thought, he saw the flash of another ship exploding), the shield would eventually be deactivated and the Death Star destroyed. Was he buying time? 

No. Of course not. Vader may be on Luke’s side in a strange homicidal way, but he certainly had no love for the Rebellion. But it wasn’t as though Luke could do anything from here; keeping him busy wouldn’t affect the outcome one way or the other. 

But it might affect Luke’s own outcome. Every time he had tapped into the Dark Side over the past few weeks, it was during periods of extreme peril. Times when he had no other choice. He couldn’t keep dodging Vader forever. Now was the time to decide: give Vader and the Emperor what they wanted, or let Vader cut him down?

There had to be another way. 

Luke only had one thing left to bargain with: himself.

“I’ve been holding back!” he shouted desperately. Vader paused in his assault. Luke locked eyes with the Emperor. “I’ve been holding back from embracing the Dark Side. I thought—stupidly—that doing so was a sign of strength. That it meant I was more powerful by resisting the temptation. But what has it gotten me? Nowhere.” He gestured at the fleet outside. “But I’m ready. I’ll do it, but on one condition: that you let the Alliance fleet go.”

“And why would I do that?” the Emperor said.

“Because, right now, all you’d get from me would be the most rebellious servant you’ve ever had. But let the fleet escape and you get me, one-hundred percent. I’ll fight who you tell me to fight. Kill who you tell me to kill. No complaints, no resistance. I’ll do whatever you want.”

He meant it. The Rebellion was bigger than any one person. It was certainly bigger than him. If it escaped today’s trap, if it lived to fight another day, it would win in the end. And if it meant he lost his soul in the bargain… it might be worth it. 

Assuming he could even do it. What he had said to Vader on the  _ Executor _ was the truth: he still couldn’t let go entirely. But he knew he could at least  _ act _ like he had. He could bluff the Emperor into believing him. He could even, given enough time, fool himself. 

And if it meant the Rebellion survived, it might be worth it. 

“A tempting offer, but one that is utterly pointless. Perhaps when all hope for the Rebellion has been lost, you will be more amenable to joining us. The fleet is mere minutes from complete destruction, your friends down on the planet have by now been apprehended and, if they are lucky, captured by some of my most elite troops. So you see, my young apprentice, there is nowhere for you to go.”

“I wouldn’t count us out of the fight just yet,” came a voice from the doorway.

Leia. Brandishing a green lightsaber.

“Thanks for providing a ride for me, by the way. All I had to do was go up to your troops, holler ‘Hi, I’m a Jedi!’ and I got a free ride right to you,” Leia said, her eyes locked on Darth Vader. “I hope you don’t mind that I decided to escort  _ myself _ the rest of the way… though I’m sure your stormtroopers are fine.” They were still scattered halfway between the shuttle docking bay and the throne room. She shrugged. “Probably.” 

The Emperor looked like he had been given a wonderful present. “At last, all three Skywalkers together. Now to decide what happens next...”

“What happens next,” Leia said, still looking at Vader, “is that we have a rematch. You and me, and this time I’m the one who walks away.”

“Leia, don’t,” Luke said, stepping towards her. 

She spared him a brief glance. “Don’t worry, Luke. I’m here. It’s going to be fine.”

“He can’t bring himself to kill me,” Luke said. “And I don’t think he can kill you either.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Leia said. She looked back at Vader. “It would just make it easier for me to do what I have to do.” It wasn’t as though he had held back from killing Ben, she reminded herself, or from killing any of the hundreds of anonymous Alliance soldiers, or the billions on Alderaan. 

“Leia, you don’t have to do this,” Luke protested. “There’s still a chance—”

She fixed him with a longer stare. He looked like hell, she thought to herself. Whatever happened to him had hit deep. “Luke,” she said, trying to sound calming, “I know that you’ve been through a lot, but you have to remember what’s important here.”

“It’s not as simple as that.” Luke took another step towards her. 

“I know that they’ve been trying to confuse you, Luke, but there’s still a difference between good and evil.” She nodded in Vader’s direction. “And  _ he’s _ evil. And I have to stop him.”

Luke looked at her and shivered. There was no warmth in her eyes; just ruthless determination and hate. Something about her had changed. “Please, Leia.”

“Why are you defending him? Of all people, you should hate him the most. Luke, what  _ happened _ to you?”

“I figured some things out. That’s all.” He was far too calm for Leia’s comfort. Something about him had changed. “I’ve had a lot of time to think.”

“A lot of time to be brainwashed, you mean.” She needed to snap him out of whatever was going through his head. 

“Says the person here for revenge,” he countered. “Says the person being controlled by her anger.” He needed to snap her out of whatever was going through her head. He stepped between her and their father. “I can’t let you do this.”

Leia’s grip on her lightsaber tightened. “Move out of the way, Luke,” she said as carefully as possible. 

“Or what?” he asked sharply.

“Or I’ll  _ make _ you move,” she said, a slight growl creeping into her voice.

Luke reached a hand out, and Vader’s still-lit lightsaber flew into his hand. 

“So that’s how it’s going to be, then,” she said, and swung. Luke parried, then pressed forward, trying to drive her back. 

It worked, mostly due to Leia’s surprise. She hadn’t expected Luke to be that fast. He had been training, she realized with a sinking heart. They had been training him for this exact moment. 

Luke remembered his vision in the cave on Dagobah, what seemed like a lifetime ago. Leia confronting him with a lightsaber, wearing a look of fear and betrayal. Exactly like the one she had on her face right now.

It soon became apparent that they were evenly matched. Overhand strike met upwards parry, feints were anticipated, slashes were dodged. Luke, trained by surviving Vader’s onslaughts, was better at avoiding incoming strikes; Leia, meanwhile, could deliver more powerful swings and move the duel where she wanted it to go. 

But eventually one of them would get the upper hand. 

Luke saw how it would happen. 

_ Leia stepped to the right, bringing her lightsaber around for a slash to the midsection. Luke jumped back just in time. He pushed off of his back foot to rebound back into her.  _

_ His saber struck her in the center of her chest.  _

_ She crumpled to the ground. Not a Jedi yet, her body did not fade.  _

_ It was as though he was flying through hyperspace without a ship. Everything seemed to move at a blinding speed around him.  _

_ He just killed his sister. And, in doing so, had killed part of himself.  _

_ The part that cared. The part that felt compassion. The part that loved.  _

_ Only darkness remained.  _

_ The Emperor’s laugh was cut short by a lightsaber blade cutting his throat.  _

_ All too easy, Luke thought, pushing Palpatine’s withered husk out of the chair and sitting down in his place.  _

Leia saw how it would happen. 

_ Leia stepped to the right, bringing her lightsaber around for a slash to the midsection. Luke jumped back just in time. As he landed on his back foot, she had already moved forward.  _

_ Her saber struck him in the center of his chest.  _

_ He crumpled to the ground, unmoving, uncomprehending.  _

_ It was as though she was in the middle of a Tatooine sandstorm. Everything seemed to whirl around her and she lost all sense of direction. There was no way out.  _

_ She barely noticed herself cutting Vader down. He didn’t even register to her anymore. Whatever part of her that cared was now light-years away. _

_ Only darkness remained.  _

_ There was nowhere left to go. No turning back now.  _

_ She kneeled before her Emperor. _

“No,” they both whispered at once. This couldn’t be how it ended. 

There had to be another way.

Luke threw down his lightsaber first. It was only through Force-enhanced reflexes that Leia was able to deactivate her blade before it hit Luke. 

They both stood perfectly still for a moment. They could hear the Emperor laughing.

“This is…” Leia whispered. “...really dumb.”

Luke smiled. “We’re better than this.”

“Damn right.” She smiled back.

Luke looked over at Palpatine. “We’re done playing your game.”

Palpatine had ceased laughing. Now he sneered. “How touching. But you forget… I only need one of you.”

The tips of Palpatine’s fingers glowed with a blackish-purple light that Luke had never seen before. A slight flick of the wrist and the light discharged into a ball of energy, only a few centimeters wide, aimed directly at Luke himself. 

The next few nanoseconds seemed to take lifetimes to pass. 

Of course the Emperor would view Luke as the expendable one. Hadn’t he just wasted weeks trying to turn him to the Dark Side and failing?

He could feel Leia’s grip on his arm, pulling him away. He could feel his feet moving but too slowly. He was too late. 

Darkness filled his vision and everything around him seemed to explode. 

But Luke was unharmed. The darkness in front of him was Vader’s cloak as he stepped between Luke and the lethal shot… and the explosion was the destruction of Vader’s life support system. 

Their father fell to the ground and lay still. The familiar mechanical breathing ceased. 

Leia stood in stunned silence. He had saved them. 

Before she could even begin to wrap her mind around that fact, she felt a slight breeze blow past her. It began to get stronger, whipping strands of her hair around her face. The room became a whirlwind… with Luke at the very center. 

He was facing the Emperor with his back to Leia but she could hear him repeating over and over: “No… no no no no no…” His hands were curled into fists. 

“Luke!” she cried, but he didn’t seem to hear her. All she could sense from him was shock… horror… and a growing well of pure unbridled fury. Something that had been holding him together had broken and he was coming undone. 

The air around him began to crackle with a bluish-purple light. 

With a wordless scream of rage, Luke flung out his non-mechanical hand and the space in front of him erupted in a lightning storm. 

The Emperor’s hands reached out and caught part of the storm, keeping it from washing over him. The two of them seemed to be wrestling for control over the waves of Force energy that had been released. 

Leia had never seen this before, but she knew it was the Dark Side. She ran to his side. “Luke, you have to stop this!” she yelled over the noise of the wind and lightning. As she moved to ignite her lightsaber, Luke made a sweeping gesture and she was thrown backwards in a blast of electricity. 

She landed on her back, the force of it knocking the wind out of her. Her nerve endings screamed in agony as the lightning faded from her body. 

“Leia…”

It was a faint sound, barely audible over the noise in the room. 

It was her father. She had landed an arm’s-length away and he was, somehow, still alive. 

“Leia… stop him…”

“How? I’ve never even seen this kind of power before.”

“The lightsaber,” he gasped. “It can deflect… Force lightning. Stop him… 

“I’ll stop the Emperor, I promise.”

“No…” His voice was very faint. “Luke… you have to stop him… save him, before…”

His breath had run out, but Leia knew what the rest of the sentence was: before it was too late. 

She picked herself up off of the floor slowly. Every muscle ached; even tapping into the Force did little to restore her strength. It didn’t matter, though: what she was going to do didn’t require physical strength. 

Reaching out to Luke through the Force, however, was one of the most painful things she had ever done. It was like walking into a fire and having no choice but to keep going, to keep walking through it as the inferno eroded every extremity until there was almost nothing left of her. 

But it was enough. 

“Luke.” She couldn’t tell if she was speaking out loud or through the Force. Not that it mattered; he could hear her regardless. 

“Not now,” he replied, as though from a great distance. “Not yet.”

“This can’t be the way it ends,” she said. “This isn’t you.”

“What am I, then?” he snarled. “I’m not a prince; my homeworld is gone. I’m not a spy; no one will trust me again. I’m not a hero. I’m not a good person. I’m nothing! A failure. A coward. So why not just burn it all down?” He turned to look at her. One of his blue eyes had turned a sulfurous yellow. 

“Because you  _ matter _ !” she cried. “Throwing yourself away doesn’t help anyone, it just adds to the endless list of things that have been destroyed. And, as awful as it is, all of this matters too. It’s all bound up together. That’s what the Force  _ is, _ Luke.”

And with that, she opened herself fully to the Light Side of the Force. 

She thought she had done so before while meditating, but it was nothing like this. It was exactly like Ben had told her, all those years ago:  _ as though every motion, every moment, was part of the balance of the universe. _

“This is so much bigger than just us, Luke.” The light started to pierce the shadows that lay between them. She stepped towards him. “It’s absurd and terrible and wonderful all at the same time. And we’re all connected by it. We can’t cut ourselves off from the Force no matter how hard we try. Even when it’s awful. Even when it feels like there’s nothing left. Even when we can’t see the light.”

“I have to defeat him,” Luke said desperately.

“I know,” she said. “But this isn’t the way to do it. The dark can’t destroy the dark… only the light can drive it out.”

A wave of despair rolled through him. “I’m never going to be a Jedi, Leia. I failed.”

“You don’t have to be a Jedi,” she said. “There’s another way—there’s always another way.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “And we’ll find it together.”

The wind began to die down and the electricity in the air expired in a haze of ozone. Luke took a shuddering breath and as he exhaled, his eye returned to its original color.

Palpatine wasn’t finished. Once again, the tips of his fingers began to glow with an unnatural light. 

Leia knew exactly where she needed to be. As if acting on its own volition, her lightsaber swept up in an arc and deflected the shot back at the Emperor. 

It was over in a mere second. 

The Emperor was dead. 

Luke collapsed into Leia’s arms as she wrapped him in a hug. 

“It’s over,” she said, amazed.

He slowly pulled away. “Not quite,” he said, gesturing to the window where the Alliance fleet was still engaged in battle. 

“We’ve got to stop this,” she said urgently.

“But how?” he asked. Then his face went suddenly still as a thought occurred to him. “Leia,” he said, looking at her with wide eyes. “There’s no one in charge of the Empire right now.”

“I mean,” Leia said skeptically, “there are plenty of Moffs and admirals who would probably disagree with you.”

“Not necessarily,” he said, with growing intensity. “The Emperor set things up to be so centralized that it basically couldn’t function without him… but Vader must have prepared  _ something _ for this outcome. He wanted us to… if the Emperor died…” He paused to organize his thoughts. “What I mean is… Leia,  _ we _ might be in charge.”

“That’s completely ridiculous.”

“It’s worth a try,” Luke said. He went to the Emperor’s throne, trying to ignore the corpse that still sat in it, and pressed a button to activate the communicator. “Attention, Commander,” he said in a slow drawl that was just enough like Palpatine’s to send shivers up Leia’s spine. “A new era has begun for our Empire. Palpatine has been…” he made an ominous pause, “...disposed of, and I have assumed his place. I trust that I have your full obedience, Commander.”

There was a stunned silence. Then the commander stammered, “Yes, y-your highness. Our full support. What is—what is your bidding?”

“For my first order,” Luke replied, “I am ordering an evacuation of this battle station. Rebel spies have accomplished a vile act of sabotage—”

“Technically true,” Leia pointed out in the background.

“—and this battle station is now facing its impending destruction. Furthermore, I am ordering an immediate withdrawal of all Imperial ships from this system.”

“Sabotage?” the commander said, suspiciously. “Surely we can make repairs.”

Luke answered in a voice of tranquil fury. “Are you questioning me, commander?”

At that exact moment, as though it had been planned in advance, Luke could hear an officer in the background announcing that the shield generator had gone offline. 

Han and the others, Leia realized. They had won.

“My—my apologies, my lord,” the commander said, terrified.

“Then begin the evacuation.”

“Right away, my lord,” the commander said. “Shall I have your shuttle prepared?”

Luke looked at Leia questioningly. She shrugged. He turned back to the comm. “Of course.”

“Imperial guards will be on their way to escort—”

“I said nothing about needing an escort,” Luke snapped. “You will find that I am more… capable… than my predecessor. Do you understand?”

“Of course, my lord. Shuttle bay 5.”

“Good. Do not fail me, commander. I am far less forgiving than your previous leader was.” He switched off the comm.

“Holy  _ shit _ .” Leia said, somewhere between unnerved and impressed. 

Luke gave a hesitant smile. “Act like you’re in charge and often people will believe that you  _ are _ in charge.”

“So, uh,” Leia said, looking out at the Alliance cruisers, which had opened fire in earnest. “We should probably get off of this thing before it blows up.”

Luke nodded, but his gaze was on Vader. “Did he…?” he asked, not quite knowing was the question was. 

“He told me how to help you. Told me to save you,” Leia said. “I think… I think he might have been Anakin, right at the very end.” Luke knelt down at their father’s side. “You were right.”

“I can’t just leave him here,” Luke said. “We should take him down to Endor. Give him a proper… something. Burial. Pyre. Something.”

Leia was silent. Luke looked at her in confusion. “What is it?” he asked.

“I was thinking…” she said, frowning. “We don’t necessarily  _ have _ to go right back to the Alliance.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we’re in charge of the scariest military force in the galaxy. What if we went with them? Tried to make it better, less horrible? Tried to do some  _ good _ with it, or at least dismantle it from the inside.”

Luke considered it for a moment. It wasn’t the worst idea he had ever heard.

But in the end, he shook his head. “Nothing good can come of that. If we try, we’ll eventually fool ourselves into thinking we’re doing the right thing. But  _ we’ll _ be the ones changing, not the Empire.”

She nodded. “You’re right. But it’s still tempting.”

“I know. I don’t think that the Empire can really be reformed. I think it needs to fall. Something better will rise up in its place.”

“Sometimes you can’t save everyone,” she said, looking at what was left of their father. 

“Come on,” Luke said heavily, “let’s go. Try to look menacing.”

“What about him?” she asked.

“I mean…” he said with a slight smile, “we’re still in charge for the next few minutes at least. Let’s go order some people around.”

There were still some Imperial Guards around, ready and willing to help; word of the new regime had traveled fast. Vader’s remains were transferred to a shuttle and (with some resistance, quickly silenced by Luke being quietly terrifying) Luke and Leia shooed the rest of the crew off. 

They were alone on the shuttle. 

“Everything okay?” Luke asked, starting up the shuttle and easing it out of the bay.

Leia was examining their father’s remains. “There’s something strange about this… he should be heavier.” She looked uneasy. “I’m going to take off the helmet. Just… just to see.”

The armor was empty. 

Anakin Skywalker had become one with the Force.


	13. Epilogue: Under the Stars

“So then Chewie,” Han said, shouting over the others’ comments, “Chewie pulls off what is probably the most masterful piece of diplomacy I’ve ever seen, without understanding a  _ word _ of what the little guys were saying!”

Chewie shrugged. “Used gestures. It worked.”

“Right, so this goes on for awhile, with everyone waving their arms around—except for those of us who were still tied up, of course—until  _ finally _ we manage to radio for a protocol droid to come out here and translate. But then that caused a whole  _ new _ set of problems because the Ewoks had never seen a droid before—”

“We thought they were going to bow down and worship Threepio as some kind of god at first,” one of the strike team members cracked. 

“They’re not  _ idiots _ ,” Chewbacca countered, but Leia was pretty sure that the team member didn’t understand him.

“So we manage to get sorted out—well, by ‘we’ I mean Chewie, who I think is now an honorary member of at least one of the tribes here,” Han continued. “And then who shows up on the scene but a bunch of those damn scout walkers…”

Leia leaned over to whisper in Luke’s ear, “You okay?” He looked about a million kilometers away. 

“I never thought I would be outside again,” he said, looking up at the stars overhead. They had found Han and Chewbacca in a village populated by the moon’s sentient species, called Ewoks. Around a fire, Han and Chewie were regaling the fighter pilots with stories of how the battle for the shield generator had gone, now that Wedge had related the story of blowing up the Death Star by flying an X-wing into the very heart of the battle station.

The battle was over, but the war against the Empire was far from being won. 

The funeral pyre was the first thing Luke and Leia had done after landing. Not that it was much of a pyre: armor was difficult to set ablaze, but it caught in the end. 

“The sands on Tatooine shift too much to bury anyone,” she told Luke as they gathered wood for the fire. “So we would do cremation and then scatter the ashes after.”

“He was from Tatooine, after all,” Luke said. “It’s fitting, I think.”

“Though I don’t think we’re going to have much in the way of ashes after this.”

After the pyre had burned long enough, they went to find the others. 

Han’s face when he first saw her was like watching someone come back to life. “I knew you would be okay,” he said, hugging her so hard he nearly knocked the wind out of her. “But I was still…”

“I’m here,” she said, placing a hand on his cheek. “I’ll always be here.”

“I love you.”

She smiled. “I know.”

Later that night, when the village was quieter, she sat with Han, Chewie, and Luke around the dying embers of the campfire. Sitting might not have been the right word for it: Han was nearly asleep on Chewbacca’s shoulder, while Leia was nestled under his arm with Luke’s head resting on her lap. 

“So, what do we do now?” Luke asked, still looking up at the stars. 

“I’d like to visit Tatooine properly this time,” Leia said. “I barely got to see my aunt and uncle the last time I was there. Spend time with the old gang… meet Camie and Fixer’s kid, make sure the place isn’t in crisis.” She gave Han a gentle nudge. “What do you think?” she asked him. 

“Sounds great,” he murmured. Chewie gave a sleepy bark of agreement. 

“But after that,” she said, turning back to Luke, “I want to show you around Naboo.”

“Meet our mother’s family,” he agreed. “That would be nice.”

“For the time being, however,” she said, “I just want to sit here.”

“Just breathe,” Luke said softly. 

Together, they watched the stars continue their endless dance: the balance of the Force present in every part of the universe, from the macrocosm to the microcosm, binding the galaxy together. 

There was still so much out there to do.

But for now, this was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we have it. Thank you for coming with me on this. 
> 
> May the Force be with you.


End file.
